E Rere Te Keo.

It's the Māori phrase etched into Wellington Phoenix's club logo, curving like a branch beneath the bird-like figure of the taniwha — a great water spirit of Māori mythology — that forms its unmistakable crest.

The phrase means "rising call" or "rallying cry": the call to prepare, to work hard, to persevere, regardless of the circumstances.

It represents everything that the A-Leagues' only New Zealand-based club has woven into the fabric of its culture, its players, and its football: mana (respect), kaha (strength), whānau and iwi (family and tribe).

And, after their tumultuous start to life in the A-League Women's competition — a debut marked by relocations and regulations, injuries and interruptions — it's plain to see how these principles have already deeply shaped the club's inaugural women's team.

It started with that first rising call, the moment the Phoenix knew they needed a women's side to complement their men's program.

According to general manager David Dome, anything less would make the club incomplete.

"We'd wanted a [women's] team for about six years, but we'd been stopped and held and held, but we finally got through," he told ABC at the start of the season.

"I think there was a realisation in the ownership group that it was the right thing to do, and to really capture the football fans in this country, we needed to be in that space.

"We could see that there were decent players coming through, we were keen to bring them through an academy. But, without the professional pathway, it was somewhat limited.

"We've [now] had two women's teams in the academy for two years, so we're sort of ahead of the curve anyway.

"But we could see that there was a real opportunity developing women's football and we really wanted to be part of it, not on the outside looking in."

A rising tide

In many ways, 2015-16 was the first major "rallying cry" for clubs to start taking the A-League Women's competition seriously.

The entry of Melbourne City into the then-named W-League — which they went through undefeated and won both trophies in their first season — was a wake-up call.

City showed that, with just a little extra investment, you could attract some of the game's biggest names — Kim Little, Jess Fishlock, Jen Beattie, Steph Catley, Lisa De Vanna — and create history in the space of a single campaign.

This was the moment that inspired Wellington — who were in the throes of their own licence crisis with their men's A-League side — to chart a course towards establishing a women's team of their own.

But the past six years haven't been smooth sailing for the New Zealand club.

"We had a lot of licence issues overshadowing everything," Dome said.

"We had a few struggles with FFA at that time — it's changed now — but we struggled just staying alive as a club.

"They were trying to get rid of us. A few people in that organisation made it extremely difficult. So we had to get through that first.

"And then, once we got through that — and the process of the separation of the Leagues from [the] FFA — we started to gain momentum. We could see the light at the end of the tunnel."

Dome noted that the Phoenix and the Central Coast Mariners were, at that time, the longest-serving clubs without women's teams.

"Mariners had one and then they were out, but obviously they want to get back in again.

"So there was a recognition that Wellington's done its dues within the club system itself, and now that we're part-owners of the league, we should be given the right to have a crack at it."

Their biggest boost, though, was winning the rights to co-host the 2023 Women's World Cup, especially when it came to securing extra funding and key staff, including head coach Gemma Lewis, who also leads New Zealand's under-20s women's program.

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"It ticks a lot of boxes for both Australia and New Zealand," Dome said.

"New Zealand Football [NZF] and the New Zealand government, to their credit, saw there was an opportunity here to leave a real legacy from 2023.

"So we've sort of done almost like a joint venture with NZF and the NZ government in that regard: a lot of the staff are NZF staff, the government is helping finance some of the costs associated with the program.

"The Wollongong experience [due to COVID-19 border restrictions] that we had with the men last season allowed us to take a lot of learnings from it, which we leveraged for the women's program now.

"And that was everything from training support services, the commercial implications and support around finance out of Wollongong.

"We've now got a very young team, which is good for development. It's good for some of our young Australian players as well, but it means we've had to put in place things like a welfare officer: someone [who] can be a bit of a mentor for the players over there besides the coaching unit.

"And a lot of ancillary support services. We have a full medical program for the team in Wollongong, including physiotherapy and medical support.

"So, it's very much like building a team from scratch but based in Wollongong, with some challenges that come with a brand new team as well. It's been a massive logistical exercise, but I think we're there now."

Laying down the foundations

Finances, facilities and logistics aside, one of the most important pillars that Wellington wanted to establish in their inaugural ALW season was their culture and identity: what they stood for and how they illustrated their values on and off the field.

It's something that was at the forefront of Lewis's mind when she started her shortened preseason as the club's late entry to the league only gave them a few weeks together to figure out who they wanted to be and how they wanted to play.

"We're trying to embrace the idea around what the Phoenix represents, as well as the history of Wellington, in terms of that perseverance – the call to hard work, the call to persevere under any sort of circumstances," she told ABC.

"We have this unique experience where we're all coming together for the first time, so a lot of the stuff we've done as a team off the field has been about who we are as the Phoenix, what we represent, and how we want to be known to the public and to each other.

"We're a new team – [we have] a lot of young players and a lot of new professionals – and I think maybe people aren't expecting too much of us. But we want to make sure we surprise people where we can, and also represent ourselves in the way we want to be seen.

"We want to play a positive style of football, and even though we might have our backs against the wall now and again, we still want to embrace that and be brave with what we do."

Embracing the challenges

Although they enter the final few rounds of the season on the bottom of the ladder, there is little doubt that Wellington's young group have done exactly that.

Off the field, their obstacles have been numerous.

Late entry into the league made their squad options thinner than what they'd planned, forcing Lewis and her staff to dig into the depths of New Zealand and Australia's local leagues to pluck hidden gems from the rough.

COVID-19 meant a wholesale relocation to New South Wales, being put up in unfamiliar accommodation with unfamiliar facilities.

A shortened preseason meant they began their first match further behind in their fitness and tactical work than most other sides, while rescheduled games has meant their young, aching bodies have been thrown across the country in a shorter space of time than what they were ready for.

And international visa rules meant that when their goalkeeper and captain Lily Alfeld was called up to the Football Ferns earlier this month, the club were forced to select an outfielder as their reserve goalkeeper for their most recent game, unable to wriggle out of the convoluted regulations in time.

It's a testament their mental and physical strength — their kaha — that they have made it this far at all.

But there is also strength in vulnerability and in accepting one's limits, which Wellington showed in early February when midfielder Grace Wisnewski sat out a match for mental health reasons.

True to the character and culture of the club, the young midfielder was immediately surrounded by support from all sides: whānau and iwi.

Senior player Chloe Knott, a trained social worker, has lent an ear and a shoulder to her teammates during difficult moments, while coaches and players across the club began a fundraising initiative to donate money to the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand for every goal the Phoenix scored this season.

Their identity has been clear on the field, too. The spirit, tenacity, positivity, and collective effort of the team has been eye-catching, and a welcome bright spark to a league that had begun to feel stale and repetitive.

It was that commitment to themselves – their whole-hearted embrace of e rere te keo – that saw them claim their first win of the season in their 3-0 defeat of former giants Canberra United in round 11.

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Indeed, that was the phrase that echoed out from the broadcast commentary as the players spilled and screamed out onto the field at full-time at Viking Park; the phrase that sound-tracked the vision of a relieved Lewis exchanging a long, warm hug with her assistant Natalie Lawrence.

A model for the future

Goals scored and points earned is one thing, but what Wellington Phoenix have built in the 2021/22 season is far more meaningful than that.

They are, in many ways, the antithesis to the Melbourne City side that sparked their creation six years ago; a side that seemed to lose its identity when their championship players departed, forced to search inwards to figure out what they wanted to be next.

Instead of luring the biggest and brightest names in order to sweep every trophy on offer, Wellington have started from a different place – a more sustainable, more soulful place.

It's a place built upon a foundation of certainty in themselves, shaped and hardened within the hot forge of their circumstances.

It's a place held aloft by the pillars of mana, of kaha, of whānau and iwi, and embodied by players like Wisnewski and Alyssa Winham, who worked her way from last-minute scholarship signing to regular starter to Young Player of the Year nominee; the whole world now at her daring, dazzling feet.

It's a place that all future A-League Women clubs ought to start, lest they find themselves hollow and directionless down the road, forced to remake themselves from the inside out.

"We're going to measure things in two different ways," Lewis said.

"Yes, how many points we can get on the table and how well we do, that's one way to measure it.

"But also, for me, it's the players that are within our environment and how much they develop; where they're going to go and who they're going to be when they leave us.

"Hopefully it's going to grow the game — and not just from a player's point of view, either.

"This has been a season where players and staff alike are able to set the scene and be like, 'okay, what do we want this team to stand for? What do we want to look like going forward?'

"It's a great opportunity to enlighten people about what New Zealand teams can bring in terms of that culture, that point of difference. That's been my experience whilst living here: that quiet, humble nature, but with the strength and hard with and determination on the field as well."

E Rere Te Keo.