Both sides started the game by springing a few surprises on the selection front. There were several changes to the Spirit side including Enes' first appearance since the payments dispute and Tony Faria replaced Matty Langdon wide on the left (although this was not much of a surprise). Wollongong sprang a surprise (for me anyway) by bringing in David Huxley (a defensive midfielder) rather than Saso Petrovski for injured striker Esala Masi. Scott Chipperfield was pushed forward from his normal attacking midfield role to striker. These moves suggested that Wollongong were going to forsake their normal attacking game, and look to grind out a result.
The first 20 minutes or so the game was fairly uneventful, although Spirit had one scoring chance fairly early on. Neither side was really on top although Wollongong looked the more composed side on the ball. Then came the incident which probably turned the match. Wollongong crossed the ball to the far post from the left and Robert Enes handled the ball, giving away a penalty which Stuart Young duly converted. A short time later, a corner by Paul Reid was floated over to the far post and an unmarked David Cervinski headed the ball home.
The third goal came very early in the second half when a Wollongong player cut a ball back from the right to Horsley, who scored from point blank range. After this goal the game was basically a non-event as Spirit never looked like breaking down the Wollongong defence (apart from one opportunity for Catanzaro) and Wollongong were happy to play possession football without any real attempt to add to the score. With the battle for places at the top so tight Wollongong may come to regret that they didn't attempt to improve their goal difference in the second half, as they surely would have done if they hadn't sat on the lead.
This is far from the first time this season that Wollongong has taken this approach (its has probably cost the Wolves two games against Olympic) and the lack of killer instinct is the main reason I don't think Wollongong will take the title as they are more than capable of matching it with any side in the league (including Olympic). I would imagine that if Olympic or Perth had Spirit on the rack as Wollongong did they would have taken Spirit apart and added a few more goals to the tally (subject of course to having a bit of luck and Hendo not haivng a blinder in goal as happened last week against Olympic).
PS Nicola Berti was anonymous (apart from getting a yellow card for a trip on Chipperfield, and then having a go at Chipperfield, presumably suggesting that Chipperfield might have made a better attempt to stay on his feet) for the 60 odd minutes he was on the field. Either he is past it or he still has a long way to go to match fitness. Either way he was not a good signing. There is no point signing a player who is not match fit so close to the end of the season.