Wellington Phoenix head coach Mark Rudan put football aside on a night of emotions as New Zealand mourned the loss of 50 mothers, fathers, grandparents, sons and daughters in Christchurch.
Rudan’s team went three nil up before half time and despite a late resurgence from Wanderers, kept all three points in Wellington.
On Emotional Evening
“Yeah I won’t lie. I’m not gonna really talk too much about the game, I’ll be honest with you because I thought that it was the second most important thing. The most important thing is what happened a couple of days ago, it’s shaken everybody up at the club. It certainly shaken me up and my players. It’s sad. It’s not what this country is about. It’s a great country this place. It’s opened its arms to so many different people, so many different races and religions and you’ve got a fantastic Prime Minister by the way as well. It’s just sad, this country doesn’t deserve it. This world doesn’t deserve something like that as well and yeah it’s tough to talk about. It’s quite emotional, I’ve grown like I said, very attached to to not just Wellington but New Zealand and you know it’s made worldwide headlines and a lot of people were asking questions and I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of Muslim friends. It’s just so sad it really is. It’s hard to put into words, like I said I think that tonight’s performance is dedicated to the victims and their families. Bless their souls, it’s just not what life should be about. So all we could do is play a small part and like I said, it’s just a game of football. You win, you lose, it’s irrelevant when when things like this happen. Like I said it was important that you know we played our part and and that was to play for someone else and that was for the victims and their families in the country because the whole country is mourning.
Watch the full press conference here.
