Football: Hudson keen to lock squad

Stalwart Chris Wood's leadership skills have impressed the national squad's coach. Photo / AP

Hopefuls need to stand up now, says All Whites coach

All Whites coach Anthony Hudson has announced a "transition date" when his youthful player-selection experiments will stop and a full-strength New Zealand squad will take shape.

Hudson plans to "draw a line in the sand" at the end of July, after the Fifa Under-20 World Cup in New Zealand and the Under-23 Olympic qualifiers in Papua New Guinea, when he will know which youth players are capable of helping the All Whites qualify for the World Cup in Russia.

But until then, his eyes are wide open. And yesterday, at an intimate question and answer session with local media, Hudson offered a plea for any young wannabes to stand up and be counted.

"If you're under 23 and you haven't shown us enough by the end of these two competitions, we can't invest time into you for the All Whites for this campaign. If I'm a young, ambitious player who wants to play at the highest level, this is a really important time."

Hudson surprised many by leaving an experienced group including Tommy Smith, Glen Moss, Andrew Durante, Shane Smeltz, Jeremy Brockie and Tim Payne behind on the All Whites' most recent trip to South Korea, but said the depth and competition created by bringing through younger players has been invaluable.

And when the All Whites next get together in September, against yet-to-be confirmed opposition, that will all change.

"Before it was about giving players a game, looking at players in different environments and ... we won't be doing that now. We will be picking players we think will be with us for the remainder of the campaign."

Hudson has hung his hat on "alignment" across all levels since taking over as All Whites boss eight months ago, and wants the New Zealand under-17s, under-20s and All Whites all playing in the same style, so that transition between the teams is easy. Yesterday Hudson revealed he played the key hand in removing New Zealand under-17 coaches English duo Jose Figueira and Paul Temple this month, six months before the U-17 World Cup and hiring Danny Hay and Chris Zoricich.

"Jose and Paul did a great job in qualifying the team for the World Cup and I'm very grateful for what they did, there were no problems there.

"It was led by me, supported by New Zealand Football. But it wasn't just one thing. Bringing in Kiwi coaches is really important and we decided that was the right change."

A national coach involving himself in hirings and firings at youth level is unusual and Hudson said 99 per cent of coaches wouldn't do it.

"When we talk about alignment, this is not the norm. However, we are in a completely different environment here and we want to create something sustainable.

"One of the key concerns when I first came in was that we didn't have any Kiwi coaches on the staff. Eventually when we do go, when the foreign coaches do go, we're not just coaching the teams and the players, we have to leave something with the technical staff as well."

Hudson said he had been impressed with the "core group" of All Whites who had been on every tour since he took over and identified Chris Wood and Bill Tuiloma as two "youngsters" who had shown great leadership in the group.