As the National League table starts to take shape we spoke to Christchurch United Coach Paul Ifill about his team's early success in the National League Championship this season, as well as the club's recent Southern League and Chatham Cup title wins and where Christchurch United can go from here. 

1. First two games played, 2 wins, how pleased are you with the performances so far?

“Yeah it’s a good start. I wasn't sure what to expect after the season we had, we’re one of the only teams in the country that didn't have a break. I was worried that might play out in the first couple weeks but we got those games out of the way and played well. I am pleased with how we've started but we have a long way to go yet.”


2. Christchurch has been offensively. In your last 3 matches of the Southern League you've conceded 6 goals but coming into the National League Championship the team has put on some great defensive performances and we’ve seen you shut opposing teams out of scoring, what's been the change? 

“I'm a very offensive coach. I’m very fortunate for the other assistant coach, who is brilliant defensively and when we first got together he said I'm gonna make sure we’re solid you make sure we put the ball in the back of the net. So it's a team effort and he loves clean sheets. We’ve got about 20 this year, I put a lot of that down to him, he was not happy at the end of the season because we were shipping goals, we weren’t losing too many games but it's a lot of goals in a short period of time and I put that down to having one eye on the cups so we were constantly rotating players, managing potential bookings, suspensions and players coming back from injury, certain players if they got carded in the last game of Southern could've missed the Chatham Cup final, so we had to mix and match during the last few weeks.”

“Sometimes there's also a mentality shift on the pitch because we had already won the league as  a player you can sometimes jump out of tackles and not commit everything because you know the job is already done and you’re trying to manage yourself for future games.”

“Getting that first clean sheet in matchday 1 was great because we were back to what we were good at and now I expect that to be the basis of what we do moving forward. We are pretty solid defensively and I always fancy us to get a goal at the other end.”


3. As an ex-player what kind of experiences and knowledge do you think you can offer the players as someone who's been there and done it at the top level? 

"I think  you just try to give them little bit and pieces. I'm a coach that likes to be in the training sessions giving feedback to individuals. Sometimes I take sessions. I take someone like Sam Philip who was a center back by trade for the Phoenix, but this year he scored 30 odd goals, I'm not gonna take all the credit because sam puts in a hell of a lot of work but I'll drop in bits of advice in the session saying “drop in there now”, “now's a good time to move in” just bits or things that I would've done in my day. I think it's easier for me as a coach. I'm still learning about the game defensively and developing my game, you’re always learning and I try to make the boys understand you're never too old to keep learning and improving."
 

(Image credit: Photosport)

4. Obviously it's still the early stages, but how is the team feeling about the National League Championship now that it's started and things are going well, is there a positive feeling around the camp about trying to kick on and get things going?

"It's always the same, when you're winning you don't  feel tired, if we can keep winning they can feel tired at the end of the season if you lose a couple that tiredness creeps in and it's that mental tiredness will become physical and it's almost just tricking yourself to keep going and going. It's a great start with 2 wins but you lose a couple and it can all go down hill. You want 20 points out of your 9 games is you have to be on it every match day."


5. With the Chatham Cup win in the books is the Chatham Cup and National League double something that the guys are thinking about at the moment? 

"Not at the moment, We're taking it one step at a time, clubs like Auckland City they're always at it, winning their own league and deep in the Chatham Cup and then National League they're almost the favorite so for us we've had a lot of success in recent years but before that there had been long trophy droughts so I think it would be a bit unrealistic to think we are favorites but in saying that you keep finding ways to get results then if it’s still going well come the end of the season we’ll start talking about it but at the moment we are happy where we are."

"For example we've got one more point after two games then we did for last years entire National League so we’re already making progress. We're not an established National League side yet, but come the end of the season that's what we want to achieve, hopefully people look back at the end of the season and say Christchurch are a real force in the National League."

Article added: Friday 13 October 2023