An exciting match ruined by the tournament regulations - which, by the way, are contradictory (no surprise there, I hear you say, this is football in Australia).
Having watched the USA destroy Canada 9-1, I was concerned when we conceeded an early goal - I wondered if the Chinese were going to try and play catch up to the US. But Australia defended much better than the Canucks, and actually spent most the the latter part of the first half camped in Chinese territory. We looked to have a fair case for a penalty when the ball appeared to be stopped from entering the goal by a Chinese arm, but the ref waved play on.
The second half started with the Chinese pressing more strongly, but Australia weathered the storm (a couple of close calls though), and the Chinese appeared to sit back and decide a 1-0 victory was good enough. And as so often happens in football, they were punished for it. A break down the right, a nicely taken chance, and the score was 1-1 in the 82nd minute. (I believe the scorer was Heather Garriock, but I could be mistaken.)
The last 8 minutes of normal time, and what seemed to be about 10 minutes of time added on (but was probably only 5) was classic stuff. The Chinese, who when they played to their potential were clearly a superior team, pressed forward for the winner. The Matildas were defending grimly. Finally, the whistle went, and we had a 1-1 draw - a very good result against a much higher ranked team. Pent-up emotions were released, there was a general feeling of satisfaction with the result. And then the ground announcer (Lex Marinos) said there will be golden goal extra time and penalties. What the... I said. This isn't a knock-out cup, its a round robin, what's wrong with having a draw?
I grabbed my copy of the programme, and turned to the section on regulations. There, under the "Format" heading, it states
"The 1st Pacific Cup tournament shall be played as a round robin in that each team will play one match against each of the other teams, with three points for a win, one point for a draw and no points for a defeat."
Unfortunately, under "Duration of Matches" it mentions extra time and penalties in the case of a draw. Now, why does it mention a point for a draw, if you can't bloody well get a draw? Who is responsible for these farcical regulations?
Apparantly the Chinese won on penalties, but I didn't see it. Along with about 20% of the crowd, I left at full-time, and will content myself with the knowledge that I saw an Australian team gain a well-earned draw against a much higher ranked nation.
Speaking of the crowd, the turn-out of just over 10,000 was an excellent crowd, especially considering it was damn cold. And best of all, the crowd made a fair bit of noise in their support of the Matildas.