One advantage we had been hoping to gain this season was to have a fit and fast young team running opponents off our very wide park in our sub-tropical heat. The latter was very much missing last evening as it was almost cold. I though the crowd was up a bit on the previous week as I had to park quite a walk from the ground and the Free Kick ran out well before kick off time which is usually a good indicator. It turned out that just over 3000 watched the game, a 25% rise over the previous week, but Glory, as champions do tend to attract some punters just for that reason. I did see a small scattering in the puce shirts of our visitors entering the ground too.
The controversial samba band was not present, I gather pending further negotiations, but there was a bit of persistent drum beating going at the city end of the UFTS stand and as our own particular expert on the pig skin was on other duties and it fell upon Wade to occasionally beat a rhythm which, IMHO. he did with discretion and appropriateness. Not so apparently the Gold 97 group which was requested during the first half by the club over the PA to cease drumming "until further notice", which request appeared to be reinforced by one or two security bods.
In our tipping comp I had submitted 2-2 as my prediction and I am still surprised that neither side could break the deadlock. Vitor in his excellent match report has given the fine detail of the game far more thoroughly than could ever hope to, so my comments will be more of general observations.
Overall I think I would have to say that I have not enjoyed a game of football in Brisbane as much since I saw the Olympic Games matches at the Gabba. It was a fantastic mid field and defensive battle with the youngsters of the STRIKERS coping with Mori, Despotovski and Morley at times with remarkable composure. The wing backs were excellent in joining the defensive line when needed and Carl Dodd looks to be a wonderful discovery. He is tall, pacey and reads the game like a veteran. I find him ( though it is very early days) the most exciting prospect since Kasey with a K before his injury. Most of the newcomers seem to have stepped up and it is amazing how the STRIKERS seems to be able to unearth talent season after season. I sincerely hope we can hang onto this lot long enough for them to mature and blend in the way that only time can permit. They are pretty bloody good right now and the pattern that Stuey and Luciano have devised is at the same time exciting and safe. A genuine penetrative striker and we will be a force to reckon with I think. On that note I though Brownlie a little disappointing in his few minutes on - a little slow and not quite tuned in yet. No doubt he will improve with match time and improved fitness.
Trani stated pre-season that we just had to stop haemorrhaging goals as we had the last two seasons and we seem to be on track for that. Further he predicted then that if we held Glory that they would resort to long balls - and they did with no gain whatsoever as I suspect we were simply waiting for that to happen. Good to have a top football brain assisting the Red Baron with the side.
Basically the game was more or less stalemate in the first half with only a couple of half chances created by either side. Early in the second half I was worried that Perth had begun to dominate, but we weathered that and in the last ten minutes the whole side really put in lead to a great extent by David Pilic who is looking more and more to be a class act. He had another free kick from the same spot as he scored from last week and drew a good save from Petkovic (who's brother, BTW, we still think better) to keep it out. We absolutely dominated those last few minutes and really think the champions were reduced to hoofing away quite desperately.
Of concern to Glory I think is that there aging pair of strikers really are becoming "Too old, too slow" as we informed them occasionally - or perhaps our youthful back four were just too nippy and savvy for them. We have now played both last year's grand finalists and done very well. I really do think we were the better side overall last night.
My favourite song for the evening was the to the Queen tune "Nothing rhymes with Pilic, nothing rhymes at all". It will be very interesting to see how many of those at PP last night will be back for more, but we have a ridiculous four weeks to wait for the next home game and with the lack of media coverage in Brisbane the team could be well nigh forgotten by Joe Public by then. At least there just might be enough time for the club to purchase and install a CD player so that some decent pre-match music might be aired.