Phoenix Update

As promised previously, here's an update on our adopted team on the other-side of the world.

The Wellington Phoenix, the sole New Zealand-based team in the Australian A-League are pre-season favourites to finish rock bottom, but have confounded critics, pre-season, with some eye-catching performances.

The pre-season cup, a friendly competition between all the A-league sides, saw them beat Sydney FC and last years A-league winners Melbourne Victory, before losing the third-placed play-off to Newcastle Jets on penalties.

The Season proper began on Sunday night with the Nix boys up against last years Champions Melbourne Victory. The Victory have been severely weakened in the close-season by the new salary cap introduced by the A-league, with last year's top scorer, Fred having left for a larger salary at D.C. United in the States, but they were still heavy favourites to beat the cash-strapped Phoenix. Watford old-boy Richard Johnson started the season on the bench, though at least he was at the game, as at one point it looked as if he may spend this season in Prison.

Victory showed their class, controlling most of the first half and took the lead through former Wolves man Kevin Muscat's penalty after Cleberson (no, not that one) was judged to have handled in the area. Ricki Herbert shook things up for the Phoenix at half time, bringing on Brazilian play-maker Felipe, despite his lack of match-fitness. Despite coming back into the game the New Zealanders found themselves two down after 60 minutes when Danny Allsopp was put through and calmly finished past Glen Moss.

But then the magic happened. Pre-season top scorer Daniel pulled a goal back for the Phoenix with twelve minutes to go, heading in a corner following some appalling defending from the Champions. The Nix, roared on by the majority of the 14,000 Westpac stadium crowd, then went searching for an equaliser, which duly arrived when Shane Smeltz headed in Tony Lochead's cross on 85 minutes to send the Yellow Fever-ettes completely bonkers.

Wellington might have gone on to steal an unlikely victory too, when first Royce Brownlie and then Shane Smeltz hitting the Melbourne woodwork in the closing moments. You can catch the goals below. Next up for the Nix are the Central Coast Mariners on Friday, who beat Sydney FC (Juniho and all) one-nil at the weekend and sit atop the embryonic A-League.

So a super comeback to start the season for the Phoenix, maybe they wont be the league whipping boys after all...