I havent read any reports of this match yet so i before I do i thought i would put a couple of thoughts down. Im sure my view will be different to everyone elses it always seems to be!!!!
I went along to BJS with my two boys just hoping for a good match and indeed that is what we got. It was excellent fare and was one of those matches where you wish you had taken a few hundred of those "soccer knockers" along. Not only was the football good quality it was also exciting and controversial.
Though they are 1 & 2 on the table the differences between the two sides was quite stark IMO. Power look like a football team. Excellent skills quick ball movement a good team understanding and seemed to have some kind of game plan. South Melbourne on the other hand still strike me as a team of individuals with varying degrees of talent and no discernable gameplan apart from run around and huff and puff. This is reflected in the standing ovation received by Con Boutsianis who I firmly believe was the worst player on the pitch. He gave 100% effort and that received reward a few times when he forced errors by Power, but by and large he was awful. Poor control, poor vision poor distribution.
For the first 15 minutes Power tore South to shreds. Operating mainly down the right through Ahmed Elrich South had little answer apart from try and hang on. Fernando Rech opened the scoring when he cut in from the right beat 2 players and cracked a thumping drive into the bottom corner from 20-25 yards.
Oddly enough having received reward for their early efforts Power started to sit back and this allowed South back into the game. About 10 minutes before half time South received the first of two very controversial penalties. Neither of which I thought were justified. (Coveny I think...) was wide on the right and tried to cross the ball through a defender standing about 3 yards in front of him. Now I couldnt honestly say whether the ball hit the arm of said defender but the referees assistant was right on the spot and he immediately turned away from the incident as the ball was cleared. That indicated to me that he thought there was nothing in it. Referee Brett Hugo was in my line of vision and I doubt that he could have seen the handball either...if there was one. Nick THeodoralphabet was on the spot and when the whistle went he was pretty quick to protest. Either way Hugo I believe was conned by the large crowd and pointed to the spot. Coveny then despatched the penalty 1-1.
Both sides had ample chances to take the lead in the second half but both keepers made a string of excellent saves. Boutsi as is his wont sent at least three balls into albert Park lake.
Then south were given their second donation courtesy of Mr Hugo. It was one of those decisions that you know is going to happen 5 seconds before it happens. Striker (Curcija) chases hopeless diagonal ball going away from the goal, Keeper (Bolton) needlessly dives at the ball about 3 yards from the striker who takes his chance and dives onto the keeper with arms up in the air screaming penalty. Whether the keeper actually touched the ball is incidental since it was well out of Curcijas reach and had probably already gone behind for a goal kick. Vaughn Coveny 2-1
Parramatta dominated after that but always looked just a bit short up front. I think they tried too many passes around the edge of the 18 yd box. It often looked great but always ultimately broke down.
With about 10 minutes left Power were denied an absolute stonewall penalty. In an almost identical incident to Souths first penalty Poutakidis handled a Power cross. The difference this time was that both Brett Hugo & I were in PERFECT positions to see. And he waved away the protests........ Suffice to say the silence on the terraces around me convinced me that i wasnt the only one who knew Power had been robbed. Consistency is allplayers ever really want from a ref.
The game continued from end to end and a couple of players can count themselves lucky not have received red cards (Stergiopoulos springs to mind )for bad tackles. No more goals though and so South went home happy. I would have liked to have been at the press conference to hear Nicks thoughts.....
As I said it was great stuff and good quality with plenty of talking points. The only really sad note was my 7 year old asking me to buy him a South Melbourne cap "for when they are not playing the Kingz Dad".......
never mind. He's blonde.