I guess we all leave games in various emotional states and being a STRIKERS' supporter it isn't all that uncommon over recent seasons to drive away feeling disappointed or a bit flat, but I don't recall leaving a game as angry as I felt last night. We have seen some of the work this side can produce and glimpses of their good quality and excellent potential over the season so far and, indeed, for ten minutes or so at the start last night versus the Kingz were shown it again with dominance leading to a very well constructed and early goal.
Out of literally nothing Kingz equalised. It was at the far end, but I think a long speculator bounced of Higgins and there was a Kingz man for the simplest of tap ins.
From then on we were poor in the rest of the half, but did create enough chances against the bottom team to be three or four up by the break. Several reasonable opportunities were ballooned over the bar due to poor shooting technique and on the one occasion, when a bit of loft would have beaten the keeper well off his line, it was hit short!
At half time I felt Luci would sort them out and get them back on track. Couldn't have been more wrong. We seemed to go from poor to dire to diabolical as the minutes ticked by. Virtually no penetration, sloppy passing and it seemed as if the STRIKERS believed that the Kingz were so weak (and they were) that a winner would inevitably be scored. It wasn't and two possibly crucial points were squandered and a place in the table dropped.
It was one of those games when one team (ours) seemed to never get even a minute piece of luck from any rebound, deflection, misskick or error and the other got them all. Frustrating to say the least. Furthermore, to their credit, the Kingz milked every opportunity to waste time at the end of the game. Lots of medical attention needed and it was quite unbelievable that only three minutes of added time were calculated. I reckon one injury alone took well longer than that. When the end came it was one of those occasions (like the Iran game) when I couldn't get out of the ground quickly enough and just didn't want to speak to anybody.
It was a lovely cool evening and quite a fair crowd turned up by our recent standards. I suppose, although it is scant consolation, our unbeaten home record remains intact. I do hope we can rebound against Spirit on Saturday. A lesson learned and all that.