It's said that in New Zealand we have Tall Poppy Syndrome. To determine whether this is accurate or not would require a lengthy study.

For instance, is it more evident here than in other countries? And if it does exist, why doesn't anyone want to pull down our tallest poppy, Richie McCaw?

We certainly have the opposite condition, Short Poppy Syndrome. Everyone gets a prize. Everyone passes the exam.

Is the chairman of the Wellington Phoenix, Rob Morrison, exhibiting symptoms of SPS at the announcement that Ricki Herbert has another contract to coach the Phoenix? He said, "We wanted to lock Ricki in as soon as possible as he has done a terrific job for the Phoenix."

Whether that's true or not would depend on what your expectations of the Phoenix are, for we can be certain that football fans who have high aspirations for their team would disagree that the coach has done a "terrific job" with a record like Herbert's.

To recap. Last place in their first season. Third to last in their second season. Fourth in season three. Sixth in season four. And currently second bottom in season five. Overall, not good enough, not if you aspire to be the best.

It's hard to think of a professional club anywhere in the world, a club which wants to be the best in their league, that would reappoint a coach of a team which has mostly underachieved with the glowing endorsement "he has done a terrific job".

Certainly, had he been coaching a club as hell-bent on success as, say, Chelsea or Real Madrid, or more locally, Sydney or Melbourne Victory, he'd probably not have survived his second season, and certainly not his fourth.

Mid table is fine if you're Wigan Athletic in England's Premier League, or Sporting Gijon in Spain's La Liga. For clubs of their resources, merely staying clear of the bottom is success. But the Phoenix are not Wigan or Sporting. The Phoenix have the advantage of being the only Kiwi club in an Australian competition, allowing it to build a roll call of international players no other club can match.

If Morrison had said "We're still not where we want to be, but we feel Ricki's on the right track", then he would have sounded more credible. Patience can be a virtue, as it was for Manchester United when they backed manager Alex Ferguson back in the 1980s. Feguson was appointed in 1986, and after four years there had been no improvement in the team's performance or results. The pressure was on United to find a new manager, but they were convinced they had the right man, and so the record has proved.

Perhaps Herbert will do a Ferguson, but he has his work cut out. Ferguson is constantly replenishing his stocks with younger players to keep the average age of the team down. Herbert has allowed his team to age to such a degree that come January, most of his key players – Ben Sigmund, Paul Ifill, Chris Greenacre, Tony Lochhead, Leo Bertos, Daniel, Mark Paston and Tim Brown – will be over 30.

The team is going to require a massive overhaul in the near future, which makes all the more puzzling the failure of the club not to move heaven and earth to hold on to outstanding youngsters Kosta Barbarouses and Marco Rojas, and all the more imperative they build a structure which includes reserve and youth teams.

This would vastly improve Herbert's chances of bringing success to the Phoenix in future, but the benefits will come much too late to help in the short term. For now, the team will have to battle on with the players it has, starting with a daunting trip to Brisbane to play the Roar tonight. The Roar are by far the best, most entertaining side in the A-League, and in Besart Berisha have the competition's most lethal striker. The Albanian is part rhino, part footballer, and the Phoenix will have their work cut out to contain the man who has scored more than any other in the League, and more than the Phoenix team combined. If they do, they still have to worry about the rest of the team, in particular German Thomas Broich and livewire Brazilian Henrique.

But Herbert will have studied tapes of Brisbane's last game against Melbourne Victory, in which nine-man Victory proved that with solid, disciplined defending it's possible to contain the goal-happy Roar.

With possession of the ball likely to be minimised by the "Barcelona of the A-League", the Nix will have to make every set piece and every chance count if they're to halt their three-match losing run. If they do, Rob Morrison can wax as lyrical as he likes with no chance of overstatement.

Billy Harris is a former All White.

