Adam Julian for LockerRoom
The Wellington Phoenix are stirring up a storm in the A-League Women.
Halfway through the 23-game regular season, the “Wāhinix” are positioned an unprecedented second on the table, having scored more (26) and conceded fewer (10) goals than any team in the league through 12 matches.
On Sunday night, the Phoenix achieved three away wins in a season for the first time with a crushing 5-1 victory over the Newcastle Jets, leading 4-0 after 22 minutes.
The game was abandoned after 88 minutes – but the points awarded – under threat of a brewing thunderstorm. It was the biggest away win in Phoenix Women’s history.
Pia Vlok also made history scoring the first hattrick for the Phoenix. With two powerful right-footed goals and a sharp left-footed finish, she also became the second-youngest player to score an A-League hattrick at 17 years, four months and 28 days.
In December, at Jerry Collins Stadium in Porirua, the Phoenix slayed Sydney FC in a record 7-0 triumph. Last Sunday, Adelaide United was dispatched 3-1, the visitors scoring a consolation goal with three minutes remaining.
Their march is in stark contrast to the first two seasons of the Phoenix. In 2021-22 and 2022-23, they finished last, winning just five of 32 matches and scoring 33 goals.
Captain MacKenzie Barry has been with the Phoenix since they started in 2021, when the team spent six months in a Covid bubble in Wollongong. A lot has changed in five years.
“The only thing to do in Wollongong was to drive two hours to Sydney,” Barry laughs.
“She was a pretty rough start, to be honest. Most of us had never played professionally. I had no idea what I was doing. It takes years to build a base of technical and tactical knowledge, a playing depth, culture, and a fan base. Being at NZCIS allows us to connect with family and friends, and that’s massive.”
Melbourne City is the only other A-League club with the facilities to rival the groundbreaking NZCIS – the NZ Campus of Innovation and Sport – in the Upper Hutt suburb of Trentham. It’s also a training base for many teams, including the Black Ferns, the Hurricanes, and of course, the Phoenix men.
Barry’s parents travel from New Plymouth for every home game.
Emma Humphries is the Phoenix Academy director. She oversees the development of the five men’s and three women’s teams that comprise the whole organisation, including the men’s and women’s senior reserves, which are direct feeders to the top teams.
Originally from Wellington, the former Football Fern spent several years overseas. She first played in Major League Soccer in the US, then moved into coaching, with roles at Vancouver Whitecaps FC, Liverpool in the Women’s Super League, and as coach for Canada’s U17 and U20 teams.
Humphries has a clear vision of what makes a Kiwi player and team unique. She believes in the Phoenix’s pioneering spirit and wants the team to see they can compete at a world-class level.
“This club is always the first club to do everything. We can’t forget that. They’re an important part of the football landscape in New Zealand. They’ve broken down barriers. It’s easier to do that when you’re second,” Humphries says. Auckland FC are expecting to have a women’s team playing in the A-League for the 2027-28 season.
“Kiwis are world-class athletes first, that’s controllable. They can play a nice, high-pressing front-foot game and win one-on-one duels with speed. That’s not something you have to spend hours on.
“Mindset is a bigger challenge: the ability to work really hard, and the belief. Sometimes, we Kiwis have that second-guessing thing going on; we don’t know how good we are. Often the recruits are the ones who bring out the best in the Kiwi players.”
A typical week at the Phoenix Academy, which is mainly for players aged 13 to 18, includes four training sessions, a game, three strength and conditioning classes, and video analysis.
The women’s pathway is becoming clearer each season. Last September, the women’s reserves team reached the Kate Sheppard Cup final for the first time in September, finishing runners-up to domestic football powerhouses Auckland United. Over half of the U19 Football Ferns who won the OFC championships in Tahiti last year came out of the Phoenix academy.
There’s keen interest in New Zealand players coming out of the Phoenix. Macey Fraser signed with the Utah Royals in the National Women’s Super League for a record A-League Women transfer fee in April 2024; Phoenix goalkeeper Victoria Esson has also played in Germany, Norway, and Scotland.
Bev Priestman is the Phoenix’s fourth head coach. A proud Geordie, who’s married to Humphries, Priestman was England’s assistant coach from 2018 to 2020, then led Canada to Olympic gold in Tokyo in 2021. (She was also centre of the drone spying scandal which rocked the 2024 Paris Olympics, for which she served her comeuppance with a year’s ban).
On a two-year contract with the Phoenix, her experience and connections have helped bring quality recruits to the club. English forward Brooke Nunn, Netherlands international Tessel Middag (with 44 caps), Nepal’s top scorer Sabitra Bhandari (66 goals in 60 games), and Dominican Republic captain Lucía León have all made a big impact this season.
In their first two seasons, the Phoenix was forced to operate under strict constraints, with any foreign player signing coming at the expense of a New Zealand player’s spot.
“I feel like the A-League is a transitional league”, Priestman says. “It’s close, but relatively new, so you’re dealing with the chaos that comes with that and learning to understand what type of players you need to recruit to grow consistency.
“I feel like we’ve had to rebuild two or three times within the season. The new partnerships we have at the moment have clicked, and we’ll keep aiming for that consistency for the rest of the season.”
Before this weekend’s round, nine of the 11 teams had each won five games, and only one point separated the Phoenix in second from Perth Glory FC in eighth.
The Phoenix have been forced to overhaul their strike force. Americans Makala Woods and Mackenzie Anthony have stepped in for Middag and Bhandari – who, along with Alyssa Whinham, are out with ACL injuries. Woods scored in the recent win over Adelaide, while Anthony netted 23 goals in 25 games for Shelbourne FC in Ireland.
Meanwhile, CJ Bott, who was originally named captain, is on maternity leave and will soon be the first Phoenix player to become a mother. Barry has taken over as skipper.
“I was always a strong defender, reasonably quick, but my understanding of the game, working with new girls, coaches and playing against different opponents has grown massively,” Barry says.
“I feel like we’re building momentum all the time, and my role is to try to harness that. The Sydney FC game was amazing – I’ve never won by that much before. Everything was going right, passes, movement, tackling, and when we’d put three or four away, the goals kept coming with the momentum from the crowd.
“Adelaide were very strong in the attacking third. I was stoked we got a couple of goals early, but disappointed not to keep a clean sheet. The table is tight, we’re playing well, but we can’t afford to become complacent.
“Bev has taken things to another level, with so much detail. I feel like our first coaches, Gemma Lewis and Natalie Lawrence – who I knew before the Phoenix – were, like the players, learning so much in an unfamiliar environment. Paul Temple came in with a more specific approach, which Bev has expanded.”
The Phoenix won seven matches in 2024-25, compared to nine in 2023-24. A top-six playoff spot has so far proven elusive. But this could be their season.
How much impact did the Fifa World Cup, co-hosted by New Zealand in 2023, have on the Phoenix’s improving fortunes? New Zealand Football has reported a 35% increase in football and futsal numbers since 2022.
After the World Cup, the A-League secured a new collective bargaining agreement, increased spending limits and became the first Australian football code to introduce a full home-and-away women’s season. There were record crowds and TV ratings.
At the start of the 2025-26 season, Western United were dropped from the A-League because of financial problems. Even with recent growth, the league remains closed, with no promotion or relegation.
“People connect with teams when they learn the personalities on them,” Humphries observed.
“The World Cup was a special moment for New Zealanders to connect with that. Winning football matches connects people, too. The level of support has definitely increased.
“Women’s football is a massive movement at the moment, and we’ve got to consolidate that.”
This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.