Another very poor first half, with Matthew Breeze the most effective player. He is not normally a person you associate with "referee" and "crap" but he was determined to be the most talked about player out there. Contrast with Simon Micallef at Souths - Falcons and it was simply unbelievable.
Deans had one incredible run - about 10 metres inside his half on the left wing, he dribbled one player, baulked another and just kept going. The defence moved over to cover him, no problems as he switched it past and was now in the box. A burst took him past the final defender but his shot was piss-weak.
If he'd scored, it would have been the greatest single goal of all time.
In the second we had a lot of success with hooked inswinging crosses, mainly from Packer and Crapcornersky. Packer sent one over that Marth flicked over the keeper and scored. Marth didn't celebrate.
Crapcornersky will score a missile every season from closer to the halfway line. The keeper has to be off his line for it to happen and John simply didn't realise the danger when Lubo picked it up. His goal against Ad City last season was extraordinary but this one exceeded it. How many people actually saw it on TV? What about Deans' run?
We had another couple of chances. Archie - twice the player of Moreira - took another inswinging cross and flicked it onto the crossbar, beating John all ways. The rebound fell nicely but Archie rushed it.
Consider : Archie with the ball in space - fakes defender and scores goal. Moreira with ball in space - runs into defender and loses ball.
Deano has a habit of getting too far forward, and worse, hesitating when the opposition pick up the ball. He was at fault against Gippsland and again stuffed up when coming out for a ball Roly had. A miskick straight to Trupkovic who hit is slowly enough to give Deano a chance at. If we can persuade Deano to remain in the box we have a good chance of going all the way.
Marth was brilliant, simply back to his mid-90's form. Sad times for the Knights and when you consider their players from a few years ago...
Juric, Buljubasic, Simunic, Cervinski, Horvat, De Amicis, Pondeljak, Marusic, Biskic, Marth, Tiatto, Lapansky, Viduka, Spiteri, Cervinski.
They have 3-4 good players now, but Susa, Bannini and Nastevski simply cannot be arsed to do anything and Kelic has to do all the work.