South Melbourne preserved its unbeaten home run with a one-one draw in the contest for third place against Newcastle United at Bob Jane Stadium on Sunday evening. In an unconvincing performance, South were lucky to have fought back into the game with a late own goal after Newcastle took a sixth-minute lead which rarely looked threatened.
Joel Griffiths scored for Newcastle, and Travis Dodd the own-goal that had the teams share the points.
Newcastle United coach Ian Crook had to depart the stadium without facing an after-match media conference, but I spoke with him by phone as he sat in the team-bus on the way to Melbourne Airport for a 9:00pm flight back home.
Crook told me that prior to the game he'd have been happy to have earnt a draw, but felt disappointed that his side's dominance hadn't gained three points from the win instead. But he'd drawn heart from the way in which Newcastle contested the game, and told me he thought it set up his side's chances of gaining a solid Finals berth.
"We were very slow out of the blocks," said a relieved South coach Danny Wright after the game. "Newcastle started the game a lot more determined in their tackles, and deserved to go a goal up. We looked flat to begin with, but I though we dominated the second-half."
The match had scarcely begun, but even from the first minutes South seemed lethargic and Newcastle adventurous, so Joel Griffiths' sixth minute goal was neither a shock nor a surprise. Griffiths received a ball with his back to goal about 30 metres out. Stephen Eagleton was wide on the left and completely untroubled by defensive attention. Griffiths looked in Eagleton's direction, momentarily leaving the South markers he faced undecided whether to close him down or cover Eagleton.
The League's top scorer took full advantage of the indecisiveness and crashed home a shot that found the net low to Eugene Galekovic's right.
Newcastle was playing with a five-man midfield and outnumbering South which had elected to play four in midfield to allow three up front. As a consequence, Newcastle's possession play was more convincing, and South was compelled to scrap for the ball. In the sweltering conditions, this was going to be a tough task.
"(Newcastle) is a very difficult side to play against," said Wright. "They get numbers behind the ball, they are very aggressive, and they play a very direct style of game. It's hard to play against, when you're playing catch-up soccer."
Ten minutes from the break, Michael Baird almost brought South level on the scoreboard, if not on the balance of play, after some battling work on the right from Peter Buljan. Buljan had won a contest with United's experienced captain Matthew Bingley on the bye-line and sent a hard low ball across the face of the goal. Baird dived to reach it but just failed to win the touch that would surely have steered it into the net.
Both coaches made a half-time substitution each, Newcastle's being Travis Dodd for Robbie Middleby as a consequence of Middleby pulling his hamstring late in the first period; South bringing on Young Socceroo Massimo Murdocca for Ray Sekulovski.
Dodd was the quicker into action, receiving a ball up the right from a rampaging Esala Masi and taking it to the bye-line before sending in a low hard cross which Joel Griffiths just failed to reach, when the full face of the goal stood before him.
Adam Griffiths had a good chance to extend the lead midway through the second-half when he rose to head goalwards from a Milan Blagojevic corner, but the ball just cleared the bar.
Newcastle's profligacy came back to haunt them with slightly more than fifteen minutes left for play. South had been awarded a free-kick 25 metres out from goal and to the right, to be taken by Bill Damianos. South brought forward its tall defenders and in the middle of the pack, Damianos found a forest of heads. Any one of a number of players may have got the touch that steered the ball past Daniel Beltrame in the United goal, but it seemed as if it was the unfortunate Dodd who managed to convert into his own net.
By this stage, South seemed to have stirred itself from its earlier torpor and took control of the match. Four minutes from the end, the lanky Vaughan Coveny managed to put the ball over the bar from inside the six-yard box with a diving header following a Damianos corner.
"It was a great chance to have won the game," said a rueful Wright.