Comment: Tom Sermanni has struck cultural chord with Football Ferns but the game sucks

Striker Sarah Gregorius, jumping clear of Desiree Van Lunteren's sliding tackle, came under some Dutch attention but should she have undergone a concussion test? Photo / Photosport

Should Football Ferns striker Sarah Gregorius have undergone a concussion test in their opening Fifa World Cup match against the Netherlands in France yesterday?

That aside, why are coach Tom Sermanni's women parking themselves behind the ball so much and are they going to adopt a similar bunker mentality to eke out a draw against a higher-ranked Canada on Sunday morning?

If, as Sermanni says, the Football Ferns "gave it everything" then I'm afraid it's time to jump off the PC bandwagon to start playing a better brand of footy.

Without doubt coach Tom Sermanni has brought harmony within the Football Ferns after the sad and sorry saga of Andreas Heraf's tenure ending last year.

But the brand of game the New Zealand women played in their 1-0 loss to the Netherlands during the Fifa Women's World Cup in France yesterday suggests it's still pretty unconvincing.

Sure, the goal, which came two minutes into Brazilian referee Edina Alves Batista's added time, was gut wrenching but it still doesn't detract from the bunker mentality Sermanni's women had adopted at a sunny Stade Océane in Le Havre.

"We gave it everything," he had said post-match on TV as the Ferns looked like adding another draw to their three from previous world cup outings.

"We defended really well," striker Rose White had echoed as well in what seemed to be a damage-control mission against the eighth-ranked European women's champions.

No, Football Ferns, you didn't on both counts.

Frankly 11 players had parked behind the ball early in the game and mounted sporadic counter attacks that yielded three plausible scoring moments.

The first one came in the 11th minute, aptly from midfielder Olivia Chance who clipped the crossbar from the top of the 18m box after White dispossessed a Dutch defender.

However, that shot was just as much a speculator as was White's 25m attempt at the half-hour mark when Dutch goalkeeper Sari van Veenendaal parried it wide off the upright.

Yes, Olivia Chance did come precariously close to becoming a catalyst for something special from the Football Ferns but that wasn't the best opportunity to score. Photo / Photosport

The only genuine goal-scoring opportunities came from Sarah Gregorius when, again, Chance put a cross in from the left flank but the striker missed it about 8m in front of the gaping goalmouth.

To compound the agony, Gregorius butchered the cross back from the opposite flank from Betsy Hassett in the ensuing passage of play with the Dutch defence in disarray.

However, Gregorius should not be thrown under the bus for the misses.

Dutch centre-mid Dominique Bloodworth had lived up to her name when she had brought down Gregorius from behind in an aerial challenge in the 25th minute.

Referee Batista should have sent off Bloodworth, whose challenge the TV commentator described as "knocking Gregorius into the English Channel", because she had no intentions of playing the ball and couldn't have if she had tried.

It seemed the Dutch midfielder's apparent display of concern for the Kiwi's welfare was some how a mitigating factor for the crude hit with her shoulder around Gregorius' neck and upper back.

It's not far fetched to speculate that the speedy forager was concussed and ask why a la-la land test wasn't conducted amid concerns that medics were asking for a stretcher to take her off the park. In fact, Gregorius was bleeding from her nose and mouth.

She had eventually got up, got over the sideline and iced her nose and mouth. She blew her nose before running back on when Batista demanded she open her mouth for what appeared to be a check to see if she was still bleeding.

Damningly, the physiotherapists and medics had earlier given her a two thumbs up to carry on playing amid clapping from the stands.

Astonishingly the same TV commentator was aghast why Batista hadn't flashed a yellow card at Dutch defender Stefanie van der Gragt, who plays for Barcelona, for tugging at White's shirt in the 30th minute.

The impact of the hit on Gregorius resurfaced when Van der Gragt brought her down in the 54th minute with no repercussions. The disorientated striker had slowly got up and, a couple of passage of plays later, crossed the ball into the 18m box to no one in particular.

Football Ferns coach Tom Sermanni has found team harmony but what about the team's play? Photo / Photosport

Sermanni didn't replace her and White, with Hannah Wilkinson and Paige Satchell, until the 74th minute.

Even rival coach Savina Wiegman, who wore a constant scowl throughout the match until the goal prompted high-five celebrations, had inexplicably failed to make substitutions when it had become obvious her first-choice foragers couldn't find the net despite countless raids.

Ironically the winner came from two substitutes — Jill Roord nodding the ball in after Lineth Beerensteyn, coming in at the 87th-minute mark for Shanice van de Sanden who didn't look as slick as her snazzy hairdo, had headed it on to the scorer. It could have been Wilkinson and Satchell playing heroes had Sermanni injected them earlier.

Lieke Martens, Vivianne Miedema and Van de Sanden were shredding the Kiwi defence at will, especially on right back CJ Bott's flank.

Any assertion the Ferns defended well, in a game where they gave up possession and territory big time, has little foundation.

The worst effort in putting up the shutters came in just the 39th minute when a corner-kick ball bounced in the box near the front upright before threading its way past Rebekah Stott, Abby Erceg, Katie Bowen, Ria Percival, Bott and White with goalkeeper Erin Nayler wondering who was going to put a name to it, with orange shirts loitering in her compound.

It's a cardinal sin for defenders to let an aerial ball drop into the stock exchange, especially when the Dutch had a cornerkick count of 8-1 in their favour in the 80th minute.

"I think New Zealand are on the verge of something special here ... if, if they can hang on," the TV sportscaster had said, before correctly predicting the Dutch propensity to leave victory very late in games.

It'll be interesting to see what sort of mindset captain Ali Riley and her women will take into their second match, against fifth-ranked Canada in a 7am (NZ time) kick off on Sunday.

Hanging in there for Kiwi teams should be a thing of the past. If you go with a mindset to draw you're bound to lose or, as former All White coach Ricki Herbert will tell you, it won't be enough to get out of one's group.

Sports scribe Lauren Theisen, writing for website Deadspin, has a point when she says the Kiwis are going to the world cup on a false economy of beating five Pacific Island minnows to a collective tune of 45 goals. For that matter, warm-up matches are neither here nor there in any sport.

"By virtue of playing in limp-ass Oceania and therefore having the luxury to qualify for the biggest tournaments simply by beating up on the even tinier nations around them, New Zealand essentially get free admission to the World Cup every four years," Theisen wrote.

That's fair enough although labelling Ferns as "cockroaches" wasn't warranted but got the attention she sought.

There should be zero tolerance for the culture of bullying, intimidation, and fear reportedly under the Heraf regime but it shouldn't camouflage transparency in accountability to show the women should play a competitive brand of footy, not a survival one.

Sermanni was always going to be a cultural champion in people skills but what about park performance?

Rosie White (back, left), Rebekah Stott, Erin Nayler, Abby Erceg, Katie Bowen, Olivia Chance. Front row: CJ Bott (left), Sarah Gregorius, Ali Riley (c), Ria Percival, Betsy Hassett. Photo / Photosport