NEW ZEALAND – ALL WHITES LEAVE FOR BANGKOK

Herbert named an almost full strength squad for matches against Thailand and Thailand ‘A’ on March 28 and 31 respectively – with just Leo Bertos and Ben Sigmund unavailable through injury, and young players Kris Bright and Aaron Scott given an opportunity to impress.

The New Zealand-based All Whites departed Auckland on Tuesday for Bangkok, where they will meet up with their overseas-based team-mates.

Given the All Whites diaspora now spreads from Greece and Belgium through Scandinavia and Britain to Australia and North America, it’s not surprising that Herbert is looking forward to what has essentially become a seven day camp with the cancellation of a second friendly in Indonesia.

“Time together is hugely important,” Herbert said.

“When you look around the world now, and even at our close neighbours Australia who have managed to get camps where they can bring players in. The difficulty we have when we play big crucial matches is a lack of time.”

“We’ve got players scattered around the world now, and it’s not easy from a logistical point of view.

The two matches – the first of 2009 – are part of the final build-up to June’s Confederations Cup and the hugely anticipated World Cup playoff in October and November. The All Whites boss already had one eye on those dates.

“This tour is about us, spending time with the players, looking at what we need to achieve later this year as well,” Herbert said.

“I think if we can bed that down, put some clarity around it and get players comfortable with those aims then that’ll only help in the long run.

“It’s seven days working together, seeing the players, having time to communicate face-to-face and having a look at the tactics and strategies we’re going to evolve later on.”

Herbert admits to not knowing much about Thailand apart from acknowledging their recent results that include a draw with powerhouse Iran and a narrow 1-2 loss to Saudi Arabia, both of whom the All Whites could potentially meet later in the year.

“Thailand are in good form and their results recently have been very interesting.”

“We don’t know a great deal about them, and are a little in the dark in that respect, but it’ll be about trying things ourselves, because there are bigger important things later in the year.

“We do know they’ll be mobile, technically very good have pace around the pitch. There’ll probably be a daunting number of people watching in the crowd but a lot of our players have gone through that already.”