A Good Week Overall

It's getting late and I'm on my third (and last) whiskey, and I just feel like writing something, so here's the week in review.

Obviously a win would have been great for the Roar, but I remember seeing the Roar beat Wellington at Suncorp Stadium two weekends ago, along with the revelation of Zullo and Kruse, and I remember thinking, "Hell, that was a breakthrough, but the next two games are away against the two top teams Central Coast and Newcastle - if we get through those, ok I'll be happy." A win and a draw was fine and, risking the revenge of hubris, I reckon with Tiatto back we can watch the boys beat Perth at home next week, so overall I'm pretty cool with all that.

And as I blogged earlier in the week, our Futsal team (The Red Eye Pirates) won 4:1 on Tuesday, so this morning topped off a good week when Jacob's Indoor team (The West End Terrors) won 6:1 against 'The Blues'. Why, oh why, do they have to so often concede a goal in the opening minute? It's like they wander on to the pitch still thinking about X-Box or Runescape or something, and then realise where they are only after the other team scores. It was the fate of their outdoor team as well. It's like the way they prepare mentally for the game is to go one down. How can I prepare them mentally before they go on the pitch? I'm sure Newcastle is thinking the same thing at the moment. Anyway, Jacob was in goals for the second half and although he wasn't under too much pressure (the Blues weren't that good) he kept his own clean sheet. Congrats to Stav (2), Max (2), Cal and Declan for the goals. Fun was had for all.

It was a good week. It's an embarrassing thought, but my emotional state at a given time is hugely influenced by the fortunes of these three great football teams, The Queensland Roar, The Red-Eye Pirates and The West End Terrors, in no particular order.

Rump Steak and Footy with Jacob

I had everything set up to 'watch' this Newcastle vs Melbourne game in the best way possible. I had the A-League 'live' site up as well as the SBS live scoring site, and had Melbourne radio playing live meanwhile.

Jacob walked into my room. Neighbours had finished. He said, "Let's go."

"What?"

"Let's go to town. This game decides the fate of Queensland man."

"Ok, we'll be late, but let's go. Put your shoes on."

We caught the train, and when we arrived at the Pig & Whistle, we had missed half an hour but it was still nil all.

I'd expected maybe a lot of Roar fans as the Pig & Whistle always play A-League games and I think is one of the official Roar fan bars. We could mostly only spot obvious Sydney supporters.

After the first Newcastle goal, I asked one of them (we were about one foot away from a whole table of these black shirts), "Who do you hope will win?"

"Melbourne."

"I actually hope Newcastle will win. You see I'm a Roar supporter." I stopped myself, in courtesy, from saying, "I really want Queensland to be the ones to knock you guys out of the competition!" So I probably didn't quite make sense.

"But if Melbourne win, then Roar are safe as well as Sydney."

"Yeah," I said, "but it will make it a cracker of a game tomorrow."

The bloke went back to his iced chocolate.

What? A bunch of young male Sydney fans drinking coffees and iced milk drinks?

No...

They did look very uniform. I noticed their shirts weren't actually jerseys, but collared shirts, with all the sponsors upon them, and they all had matching track pants as well. They weren't drinking, and then one said, "I'm going to go for a massage. At 8.30 we can get a massage."

I turned to the bloke again. "You aren't the team are you?"

"No."

How silly of me. "Are you playing for the Cove in the curtain raiser?"

"No."

"Um, it's just that you all have matching track pants, and, um, none of you are drinking."

"Ok, we're the players."

"What's your name?"

"David."

"David who?"

"David Carney."

"Oh."

I'll only make one real note. These guys clearly wanted Melbourne to win. They were noticeably stunned as Newcastle walked over Melbourne. In their eyes - each and every one of the eight or nine of them there - was, "Oh fuck, we might not make the finals." They did not look confident to me. As Jacob pointed out, maybe there were a bunch of Roar players somewhere looking the same way. The only certainty is, this one tomorrow night is really going to be a cracker.

As they left (as soon as the fourth goal was scored), I said to David Zdrilic, "May the best team win." He said, "Thanks mate," and I reckon that was about as much as either of us could have expected from the other.

I meant it though. May the best team win. I reckon the Roar are the best team, but in under twenty-four hours, we'll all know.

YIP YIP YIP YIP YEEEEEEE HARRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what?

Despair and Repentance

First of all, have a look at this photo of Roar's new super-youngster Ben Griffin scoring one of the coolest goals, not to mention the Roar's first for a while. The image is from the A-League site, who I sincerely thank in advance for not suing me for breach of copyright.

I'm looking at the crowd behind Griffin. It's kind of nice that it's an apparently Roar supporting section of the stadium, evidenced by three Roar shirts and a cap. But then I note that of the ten faces I can see, only three of them actually saw the goal. The girl in green in the middle was lucky to do so because she appears to be watching the game despite her boyfriend trying to distract her attention. This crowd does not expect a goal, but is there in some sort of dutiful loyalty.

The bloke toward the left in a Roar shirt sums up something in his demeanour for me. Blank, unexcited face, arms crossed - a generally grim resignation in his face and body language. He sums up how I felt at that very moment, and although I was in front of a TV, like him I was at least watching the moment. I try to imagine that same bloke a half a second later when he saw the ball hit the back of the net, then half a second after that when he realised that he really did see the ball go into the back of the net and there was a whistle blowing and that there might even be a god after all.

From zero to 120 in less than a second. Pure orgasm. That's why we do this.

I feel for the other seven faces in the picture who missed the moment. But they would have almost instantly been caught up in euphoria anyway. And that's why we have replays.

There is a reason I didn't blog about that game afterward and it's not a flattering one. It was guilt. For weeks I had stuck to my Queensland loyalty and hope despite the mounting evidence that Queensland was slipping. I hung in there, and I believed. My son - my own flesh and blood - had abandoned hope long before and I was determined to show him what loyalty meant, and what hope-against-all-odds, Queensland-style, meant. But after that abysmal effort at Suncorp in Round 16 I snapped. I committed the sin of despair.

To the boys in Haz-Chem orange I submit my sincere apologies, and the following commitment. Through thick and thin I will never stop believing in you again. Yes, Frank, that even goes for you. You're a Brisbane boy after all, and I ought to have a little faith.

For the time being, you're still in this game Queensland. Go the bloody Roar!

Season Two Ends for the Roar

Well that game against Newcastle was the decisive do or die for the Roar, and the Roar died. My loyalty is tried, but will prove absolute I know. I will continue to watch every Roar game and cheer the boys. I even trust that they'll win a couple more before the end of the season. But they just haven't got the stuff to be in the top four this season. Tonight they crossed that psychic rubicon from 'we can do it; we have what it takes' to 'there's always next year'. It was in the air. It was in their faces and in the voices of the crowd. Truly the Roar may have dropped the ball weeks or months ago, but tonight the very ball of hope was dropped. Sad but true.

Excuses? Yeah, plenty. I would have loved to see them with even a well Matty. When I made my prediction I thought they'd have the beautiful Matty/Spase combination I saw last week. Despite the fact that he's made a few mistakes, we bloody missed Sasa Ognenovski in defence as well. As an aside here, as I don't want to make a primary point of it, is it good coaching for Farina to train the boys so hard that they lose two of their key guns in training? ("...All part and parcel of having intense training sessions.") Moot that. I dunno.

But hey, let's get really wild. We all know how the Roar kicked arse in the early season. Let's wonder for just one second how Newcastle would have buckled under a Roar with Massimo as well as Matty, Spase and Sasa. It's just dreaming of course, because it wasn't. Our engine room is gutted. Meanwhile Zhang and Reinaldo, our promised magic strikers, are apparently permanently off the squad. It's not easy to say how much our gutted midfield is to blame for the lameness of Mori and Lynch either, though tonight I'd have to say there was a few balls that Lynch in particular really could have had more of a go at. Mori just doesn't connect with this team it seems, and no wonder because he doesn't even train with them. Does he know them all by name? All just speculations now. All just those post-mortem 'what ifs'.

I got a yellow card tonight. My first, and hopefully last as a spectator. When Mat was substituted in the twentieth minute I was just shocked. The Roar were already playing terribly, and I would have been the first to say that Matty was being a bit slow, but he was hardly the only one and to me, after Spase not being available at the last minute, it seemed truly mad. I was ballistic. I screamed out, "What are you doing Frank?" Then I screamed, "You are a fucking madman, " or something to that effect. This would have been fine if I was with the Rejects or something, but I was very close to the front and Farina turned around, looked me straight in the eye and said, "He's sick." Various people from rows behind threw a bit of abuse upon me and I had to eat some humble pie. It all made sense. Matty was actually ill. Embarassment, and no less frustration. This was the end of the season.

A few minutes later a security man put his hand on my shoulder. He said someone had complained I'd used the 'F word' and that there were families about. I said I wouldn't do it again. John said I was lucky to not get a red. Whoops.

Not a good night for Football Down Under. Not a good night for the Roar. Poor Jacob was embarassed too with his frustrated father, foot firmly stuck half way down his throat.

We waited around at the end of the game so I could just feel the vibe and watch the Roar players - those still on the field and those like Zhang, Spase and Sasa in suits - and their grades of despondency. The vibe affirmed for me that tonight we did not just lose another game. Tonight we lost the season.

But there IS always next year.

PS, and it is firmly a PS, my hat is off to Dario, who brought renewed energy onto the field after Matty came off, and almost made us look good for a bit, and to Packer, who showed some great skill attempting to step into the gaping breach. Grossman also showed some real flair a few times.

Blogs, Terrorists, Roar, Storms and Sobriety

Fair warning to all: this is going to be a discursive blah, covering a few unrelated subjects.

Well the Roar is all the rage in blog land. With two new blogs by Roar fans, A Seat at the A-League and What in the Roar?, as well as two new southern blogs showing more than a fair share of obsession with the Roar, Girl's Guide to the A-League (a Melbourne based site) and The Fisherman's Friend (the first Mariner's site that I know of), the Roar are the talk of the blogosphere. Fine by me really.

Apologies for the good folk from Melbourne and Adelaide (yeah, yeah, well done Victory), but my football weekend really began on Saturday morning. With goals from Jiaan (3), Morgan (2) and Max (1), the West End Terrorists beat the Newfarm Jets 6:2 in indoor soccer. Really, this is by far the most entertaining football of the week for me. They were down one player so only had one reserve, and they had to work hard.

A couple of the opposition went off with limps, which was unfortunate, but I was proud when the second went off (Wayne, who would have to be the Jets man of the match), all of the Terrorists clapped, in genuine appreciation of his skill and speed. If John, their head coach (they sort of have two - I know a manager and two coaches seems over the top for a 12 and under team, but we love them), had not have had the insight of training with Wayne at school, and specifically instructed two Terrorists to shut Wayne down, the score may have been different.

So well done to all. There's only one game to go before the finals and it's just possible The Terrorists could get in the top four. For their first season, and starting before they even knew the rules, they have done extremely well, and parents and coaching staff are all proud as hell.

I'll be updating their progress.

Saturday night was... well it was Saturday night, and the night was balmy, the moon was high in the sky, and after a rather choppy start ("wierd" is not a term I use to describe a football spectacle usually but it somehow works for the first 15 minutes of that game) the Roar rocked. Yeah yeah, the Roar often rock, but after 81 minutes they remembered how to score, and it wasn't a lame-arse penalty or something but it was a bloody beauty. In that moment a young man called Matt McKay changed the timbre of my life and simultaneously became the first person ever to make it onto my Christmas card list. Thank you sir!

My excuse for not blogging over the weekend is that I got a bit drunk and the next day nursed a headache for most of the day. I'm not as young as I used to be.

Sunday afternoon however I went to the weekly kickabout. For any Brisbanites reading this, here is the blurb, and I do invite and encourage you to join us:

Time now half an hour later: 4.30 pm
Sunday
Davies Park (that's Jane St, West End), on the rugby league pitch (there's grass!)

As always, all welcome: young, old and in-between, beginners and old hands, women, men, boys & girls—no need to be a club member or anything either, so tell friends, family, etc, if you think they'd like to play.

There was about 10 a side but we got drowned by a storm after about half an hour.

Meanwhile, as we swam about in our boots, Sydney and Central Coast were failing to score, just as earlier Newcastle had failed to beat New Zealand. As if the Roar hadn't had enough gratuitous good fortune, this kept us only a point from fourth place. To really stretch spin with statistics, Melbourne were the only ones to score more goals than the Roar on the weekend. Ha!

I came home utterly drenched, but it was a damn good football weekend nevertheless.

Goodnight. (I didn't say cheers because I'm having a second night without whiskey).

Reflections from the Rejectory

For months now Jacob and I have had an arrangement that we'd go to one of these Roar games alone - that is, just the two of us - and spend it with the Rejects - the den of hard-core fans behind the goal posts.

"Why do they call themselves the Rejects?" Jacob asks. A fair question. Now, the boy has understood the concept of irony for quite a while, impressively enough, but the subtlety of taking the piss out of yourself is not easy for a proud young chap to grasp. In this case he's not entirely alone. Like a motercycle gang I used to know called 'The No Hopers', who were truly wonderful people but actually were, for various physical and mental reasons, no hopers, it's not clear to me whether irony is intended.

Anyway, somehow after last week in the corporate box, it seems to have somehow properly rounded out our crowd-experience.

It was fun. I mean really, the colour and intense enthusiasm was there - both in direct contrast to last week in the box where there were no Roar colours (and not even a pair of jeans), and very mixed levels of enthusiasm. But we did both decide that from now on it was back with the mass of whoevers for us.

When it comes to religion, it is the fashion these days - and I am a proponent of this fashion - to abandon the church yet maintain the importance of personal spirituality. I think I'm feeling the same way about Roar fandom. There is something rather forced and contrived - even controlling - about the 'official' fans, and although I think the overall crowd experience would be less for their absence, I choose independence.

I'm simply uncomfortable with the notion of booing the other team just because it's the other team. As I try to explain to the kids for their games, when you lose a game, you say, "good on you" to the other team because the implicit message in doing so is, we're actually better than you, so we'll get you next time. To boo the other team when they score a goal is to declare your inadequacy, and the other team hear that declaration. This equation is reinforced for me as it is quite transparently the best opposition players, as they are introduced on the big screen, and especially the goal-scorers, that get the biggest boos. So if I was on the opposition I would be hoping for the biggest boo as it is clearly a compliment and a declaration that the booers are scared shitless of you.

Now at the same time a lot of the stuff is pretty friendly. Brisbane town is just wonderful... Melbourne town stinks, is all harmless banter really and I know it can be taken as silliness. When we were lining up for tickets the Melbourne fans marched in, very organised and militant. Jacob and I had a good laugh when they chanted, you're Dutch, you're Dutch, you don't know very much. The line between humorous banter and advertising your inadequacy is pretty fine I guess, but when I see a good goal I clap, and I don't care which side scored it.

Now a specific critique of the Rejects, and their most signature effort, which happens every time the opposition goalie does a goal kick. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, everyone holds both their arms out in front in a cross between a nazi salute and spirit fingers, building up a roar sound. The crescendo happens, every time, about half a second after the ball is kicked, with the chant, "You're shit, ha!" It took me ages to determine that that was what was being said, not because it wasn't fairly clear, but because it seemed too inane for a regular, signature and otherwise quite impressive and theatrical chant. Now I'm not even referring to the principle in the last paragraph. Let's assume that insulting the other team mindlessly is the height of effective psychological warfare. If that is the case, this chant is still useless, because the moment of impact happens after the opposition goalie's seconds of concentration, and after he has kicked the ball. If anything I can imagine the said-goalie getting quite a positive ritual boost from the experience of the heightening roar behind him, especially as he gets used to the rhythm of it happening every time. Time and time again, when the "You're shit, Ha!" part happens, the entire crowd is already watching successful play occurring at the other end of the field. Irony? Just bloody stupid I reckon.

I am of course getting back to one of the running themes of this blog, and that is that football is a valid spiritual journey. One day I'll elaborate, to all round yawns no doubt, on this theme specifically. Suffice to just point out now that the fact that football clearly has no universal earth-shattering truths hardly detracts from it being a valid spiritual journey. The problem with most religions in my mind is that they think they do have some universal earth-shattering truths behind them, which is very, very dangerous, not to mention arrogant and profoundly hubristic. Ineffability is the only divine or universal attribute I'm interested in. Anything effable can get effed as far as I'm concerned (that's not mine - I got it from either Monty Python or Douglas Adams - but I love it).

Oh my God, I've really gone out on some limb haven't I? The game? Ok, Packer's home goal, which I swear he was aiming straight at me (I flinched in my 3rd row seat) was depressing of course. Bit of a communication problem there. Matty was not his brilliant hard working self (the best thing he did was technically a blatant foul; when a Roar player was injured and Victory clearly should have kicked the ball out but kept playing, Matty shouldered a Victory player away from intercepting the ball going out, with no pretense at all of going for the ball, sprawling the latter, who then looked like he was injured himself; the ref judiciously - and rightly - ignored Mat's foul). Seo was the clear star for the Roar. Reinaldo was once again second-rate, and frankly Zhang should have replaced him rather than Dario.

If anyone wants to read about the game properly, firstly the mainstream A-League and media sites are rubbish. Mike the Football Tragic has already done a good analysis of the Roar's game, and Tony the Round Ball Analyst will no-doubt do his usual excellent wrap up in a couple of days. Scary Monkey also made some light-hearted comment on the game on Girl's Guide to the A-League. She made some further comment about the shower of yellow cards as well.

Cheers. I hope everyone is enjoying the weekend.

The Queensland Meow

The unique aspect to my experience at Suncorp Stadium last night was that I spent it in a corporate box. I don't think the people who invited me - parents of Stavros, one of Jacob's Terrorist mates - even know I blog, so I don't feel I should name the company, but needless to say I appreciated the opportunity to experience the game from the vantage point of the privileged. Even better when the boys, with Stavros' mother, were also able to be invited up as a few of the clients had failed to show up.

I had virtually premeditated this blog as a comparison of the experiences. I was ready to talk about how I so much prefer the course banter and smells in the main stands, screaming, swearing and drinking beer out of plastic cups. But I must be perfectly honest here. The corporate box was brilliant.

The food was brilliant, drinking proper beer out of glasses was brilliant, the bird's eye view from pretty-much the centre of the pitch - although distant - was brilliant. Even the company - even aside from my friends who invited me - was jovial and fun. A couple of the clients were knowledgable football buffs, but most weren't, but they were interested and there to enjoy.

I did feel privileged. Hell, I was privileged. No pretence otherwise. But I will not miss it when I'm back with the plebians. Because I still love the smells, the language, the course heckling humour, and the beer from plastic cups.

The night itself was beautiful. The West End Terrorists had beaten the Hogz that morning at Indoor Soccer 8 points to 4, which aided the high to begin with. Even the football was enjoyable to watch, especially in the first half.

What the hell is wrong with the Roar? Now I should prelude this with the fact that I pretty much expected Adelaide to win. But I expected them to win by outplaying the Roar. Once again, a deja vu from Round 5, the Roar dominated completely. Just by watching the play, watching the midfielders repeatedly stealing possession and beautifully passing it around and up the field, there was no question who should have won the game.

So I'm no longer blaming the midfield and the loss of Massimo. Frankly Matty, Seo and Packer are purring. Sassa didn't have his best game, and made a few silly mistakes, but overall the defence was also tight and fluid. The ineffectual meow is in the strikers, and especially Reinaldo.

I'm going back through my memorys of the Brazilian. The first I saw him was in Round 4 against the kiwis and he appeared to have a few good chances there, and I put it down to luck that he didn't score from play. He did score from a penalty though. It wasn't clear that it was his penalty to kick, but he had the ball in his hands and there was clearly to be no discussion or consultation about it, and here is where I'm beginning to piece together a problem of psychology. He took the kick, got the goal, and did the most ostentatious celebration of the evening.

Now I loved his cartwheel and double backflip, and said so at the time. Don't get me wrong there. But perhaps a little bell should have rung when a couple of weeks later he boasted about how he was going to surprise the Roar fans with more celebratory acrobatics next time he played here. This guy really likes himself. The name on the back of the jersey is more important to him than the one on the front, to paraphrase the coach in Goal!

Last night you could see it in his movement and almost feel his one-track desire to put the ball in the net, at the expense of any good play. There were several times he could have fed it to Lynch and just didn't. He called for the ball virtually every time anyone else had it, without apparently reading the game around him at all. Lynch on the other hand was more coherent, and several times did get it to Reinaldo, but the show pony, in nervous egoistic excitement, couldn't deliver. That's what I'm seeing; it's an interpretation, but it's been growing on me for a few weeks now.

It seems wrong to scapegoat one player, and there were other mistakes on the field, but overall the Roar looked like a very effective machine. Something is wrong. That something appears to be up front. I'm making my call now: that something is a Brazilian with an ego bigger than Miron Bleiberg's.

I'd like to see a start next week against Melbourne with Zhang and Lynch up front. For so many reasons the Roar can beat Melbourne. Whether we will or not depends entirely upon what happens up front.

Cheers.

Should the Knights Bugger Off?

No, they should not.

Surely after The Knights' win against the Roar last weekend, Les Murray and Frank Farina have some words to eat.

When I first read Les Murray's article (It's time to bone the Knights) a month ago I was a bit shocked. Calling on coaches to be sacked is pretty serious stuff and it has become clear to me that this is part of the game. And obviously pointing fingers at management, players or even fitness coordinators is all fair game, so to speak. But to call for the sacking of a club is very serious indeed, and in my mind should only be contemplated in the case of a serious corruption scandal or something.

The Knights' main crime was to be the worst team in the A-League. Needless to say someone has to bear that burden.

Now to the personal dimension of this. The Roar are still stinging after being held to an embarrasing defeat last weekend. Are we to be denied the opportunity - indeed the right - to vengeance? All of a sudden, not only have the Knights redeemed themselves (certainly in the eyes of their own fans) but we have a brand new dynamic derby between these two clubs. I was there at Suncorp in Round 4 when the Roar whipped them 5 nil. The Roar's defeat last week was classically the burden of hubris. We will meet again, and it will be a corker (Round 18 on their turf).

There is that other crime. The Knights have not been drawing large crowds. Once again, that is the burden of lowest-ranking teams the world over. Winning teams, it seems to me, need the losing teams, and if necessary, darn right they should be subsidised financially. And let's see if a few more kiwis aren't showing an interest now. On that front Jeremy Brockie is probably making the most constructive suggestion: employ some kiwis to play for the kiwis. This will not only give the fans more reason to support the team but will give the team some of that tribal spirit that brings out the best in players. I'll only add, teach them the Haka.

My quite simple, self-evident point is that to sack the Knights is to reduce the base of support for the A-League itself. To replace it with, say, North Queensland would largely be to split the possible support in Queensland for the League as a whole. We can't take our eyes off the fact that the A-League doesn't have an overwhelming following anywhere yet. Sure we can talk about crowd numbers in Melbourne, the dominant team, and that's great, but I suggest that even in Victoria if you went to your local - choose one packed with people - on the night of a Victory game, you would be flat out finding a table of people keen to watch the game on Fox. In Brisbane that is most certainly the case. Scapegoating New Zealand, the weakest team (so far) in the comp for low crowd numbers is just bad taste in my opinion.

Finally, can someone please tell me if there is an independent Knights-supporting blogger out there? James over at Confessions of an A-League Junkie referenced an article which actually referred to such creatures, but as he pointed out, it remains a mystery as to who they are.

The Spluttering Roar

Had a good night out last night at Suncorp Stadium with Jacob, his mates and fellow Terrorists Max and Callum, and their Mum Fiona. No complaints about the company, and despite an ominous period, the weather held out too. Pitty about the game, but you can't have everything.

Newcastle deserved its win. Congratulations to the boys in camel yellow.

The Queensland midfield actually wasn't too bad. In the first half I thought they dominated the Jets' midfield, but the front line might as well have gone off for cocktails. Reinaldo in particular is starting to look like a showy dud. I truly hope he lifts his act, as I love his backflips.

Newcastle's Rodrigues was clearly their star. I assume he's ok, because my quick peruse of the media this morning has not revealed anything about his injury, but when he was stretchered off I was one of the few Brisbanites clapping him, for sheer performance.

Booing the player who has just beaten the pants off you is worse than bad sportsmanship. It reveals a deep inadequacy. I don't think this is just a Queensland thing; it seems to be a feature of the football audience, and it's crap. Football above all else is a spiritual journey, and if you fail spiritually, in the end you fail on the pitch. Ok, I'm quite mad.

Meanwhile, go the Roar. There's clearly some thinking to do, and some rejigging. Best of luck figuring it Miron and the team.

And to all who love our glorious game, have a great week.

Melbourne vs Queensland

I'm not going to say much. It was good football, and the best team won. The Roar were a bit panicky from the beginning and never really looked confident, whereas Victory have a cool momentum about them which is going to be very hard for any team in this competition to beat. If the Roar can't do it, who can?

For Queensland the only joy was the revenge from the Broncos.

My addendum is yet again about the difficulty for a punter to even see A-League games. Once again I showed up at The Muddy Farmer, as it has proved a good venue for me until now. But they didn't have Fox Sport 3, which is a brand new channel, or that's what they said. I wasn't the only one disappointed this time. There was a small group of folk who had planned to first watch the football and then the Rugby. This is in Queensland mind, and surely the idea of a prequel for the rugby final of a good Brisbane vs Melbourne game should even be a bit of a feature. Not so.

It simply had to be their mistake and they obviously didn't try to figure it out. I called a friend who figured out how to get his Fox to the new channel and allowed me to invite myself over.

And yes, as John said, I really should just bite the bullet and get Fox, but it hardly corrodes my point that the lack of free-to-air coverage is seriously undermining the ability for the A-League's following to develop.

Peace.

Roar vs Adelaide

I'm going to start with the evening's minutia, because it's easier. One reason I like blogging is that the minutia can be prominent, as contrary to with the MSM.

First, it's great that our tickets to the game are also train tickets, and myself, my son Jacob, his mate Max, and my mate Sean, took off for Southbank Station at about 6.30pm. The kids, like last week, went straight for the drink machines and bought hot chocolates. Unlike last week however, the hot chocolates were really weak. Can someone work on that please? Southbank station drink machines: up the chocolate!

Second minutia. When we got to the game, stocked up with beer, drinks and chips, and sat down, I once again (like last week) thought it was really cool to watch the kids' teams (under 7's or 8's I'm guessing) play. It must be a complete thrill for them to play in front of 10,000 people or so (it was over 16,000 for the actual game). Someone is thinking about the long term development of the game, and it's great.

Ok, enough minutia.

What can I say? Queensland was dominant, increasingly, and by the end overwhelmingly, but just couldn't score. Are the Roar back to last season's curse? I bloody well hope not.

Robert Bajic, the Adelaide goalkeeper, will never forget this game. He had so much pressure on him, so constantly, and increasingly until it became a minute by minute push at his goal. He made a couple of errors, but not when it counted. My hat is off to him.

The man of the Roar side was Hyuk-Su Seo, in almost constant mid-fielding action to maintain and extend Queensland possession. It's certainly not his fault that the strikers just didn't connect.

They didn't. They all had decent chances, but just kept missing. On the few occasions they were on target, Bajic came through.

The best chances for Queensland were after Yuning Zhang and young Dario Vidosic came on in the last quarter. Dario played beautifully and set up some lovely chances, including two from corners. "Zhang stuffed it," as my son Jacob eloquently puts it. But due credit has to go to a staunch, determined Adelaide defence. At that stage, with one man off the field, Adelaide was not even attempting to mount an attack.

Frankly, this does not bode well for Roar. If they can't beat Adelaide, Melbourne will be a serious uphill challenge for them. Sydney? Bah! Sydney are crap at the moment, and in my view don't pose serious opposition any more than New Zealand or North Coast Mariners. But at this stage, despite a dream beginning, Queensland can confidently only say that they are in the top four.

Whiskey and beer. Good night!