The first win this season for Southern United in the ASB Premiership had players raking round looking for tin-openers.
Beating the Auckland-based Wanderers 2-1 with 10 men was certainly a cause for celebration, and the largely student-based Southern squad is not slow to party.
Along with the usual ingredients for party time, manager Neill Glover's mystery motivational tool became centre stage.
Glover had created mystery cans he handed round to everyone in the squad, with the proviso that they should not be opened until after the team's first win.
Labelled ''Success Comes in Cans - not Can Nots'', the cans became a conversation piece in many a flat.
For a while, those tins looked capable of matching the cans of food Shackleton left in Scott Base for a decade or 10, and might have ended up in museums.
But with their first win under their collective belts, the Southern United lads were out searching for tin-openers.
Glover had always refused to disclose the contents of his cans, so before they were opened, there was much shaking at ears, and sniffing to guess the contents.
And when they were at last opened?''Ah, lads, that's phase two,'' Glover said.
''You can only disclose the contents after your second ASB Premiership win.''
So, the contents remain secret and embargoed until coach Luis Uehara's team notches another win.
Its next chance is against Waitakere away on January 12, followed by a home game against Hawkes Bay on January 18.
