Football: Phoenix forgotten man Hamish Watson now crucial cog

Hamish Watson of the Phoenix takes a shot at goal. Photo / Photosport

Pre-season enthusiasm for the Wellington Phoenix has never been as strong as it was before the current A-League campaign. Much of that excitement focused on the front third, where the acquisitions of Melbourne Victory attackers Kosta Barbarouses and Gui Finkler to join Roy Krishna, Michael McGlinchey and Roly Bonevacia had fans salivating at the possibilities. All around the league, clubs were on notice; this would be the Phoenix's best goal-scoring side ever.

In amongst the big name arrivals and optimistic chatter, local striker Hamish Watson's presence passed almost without comment. But after a stand-out performance on Saturday night in Hamilton, in what might prove to be a major turning point in the Phoenix's season, he's a virtual certainty to face Western Sydney this weekend.

For whatever reason, the highly-feted "front five" didn't fire in the first two months of the season. Of them, only Krishna found the back of the net in the first eight games, a scarcely believable lack of output from such high quality players. Their inability to score goals was a key factor in the club's miserable start to 2016/17, eventually leading to Ernie Merrick's resignation after six losses in eight games.

Merrick's departure wasn't the catalyst for wholesale changes in the playing eleven; in fact, the only tweak interim coaches Chris Greenacre and Des Buckingham made for Saturday's game against Central Coast was to include Watson in the front-line. This seemingly small change made a massive difference.

All of a sudden, the Phoenix attack had a focal point. Watson played as a traditional centre-forward, allowing his smaller, nippier team-mates to find pockets of space which weren't evident in earlier matches. He was constantly available for passes from midfield or defence and worked tirelessly to create chances for his colleagues.

"It gave us something a bit different," said Watson.

"(I was) a bit more of a target to bring Roy and Kosta into the game and it gave them a bit more space. I think it worked well," he said with trademark modesty.

Watson is what you'd call a "one-hundred-percenter". He never gives opposition defenders an easy game, sprints back to make tackles, chases lost causes and is happy to put his body between a defender and the ball in order to retain possession, even if it means wearing some bruises in the process.

"That's what we worked on before the (Central Coast) game - closing their centre-backs down and obviously I'm a big part of that. You just have to work for as long and as hard as you can and if you're knackered, put your hand up."

It's Watson's second stint at the club. When Merrick arrived as coach in the middle of 2013, he famously told Watson - who was then a member of the Phoenix Football School of Excellence - he'd need to lose 10 kilograms if he was to be signed as a professional. Watson duly dropped the weight and was rewarded with a contract for the second half of the 2013/14 A-League season, making two appearances from the bench.

Time at Grimsby Town in the UK followed, during which Watson admitted to falling out of love with football. He returned home to play domestically for Hawke's Bay United, where he was convinced by former Phoenix legend Paul Ifill to give professional football another crack. The robust striker joined the Phoenix as an injury replacement for Roy Krishna for the last nine games of last season and did enough to earn - with little fanfare - a one-year deal for the 2016/17 season.

He arrived almost unnoticed, but the forgotten man may just now be one of the Phoenix's most crucial cogs.