Not sure what to make of this game. It's either one of two things....
1) The Kingz played well or..
2) South Melbourne were shite
You can take your pick. I'll actually say it was a mix of both. Souths played like they were woodenspooners. The Kingz for all their onfield woes this season actually strung together some nice flowing football and controlled the game. They looked like contenders rather than the shite they have been all season.
I think the 3-1 win over Marconi was the best game of the season for the Kingz to date, although this goes down as the second best game, as the defensive parring of Danny Hay and John Tamboras (surely Kingz player of the season) dealt pretty admirably with any SM attacks. Con Boutsianis was virtually nullified, although he did manage the only shot on target for Souths all night. I certainly can't recall any visiting side not having more than one shot at goal in any Kingz game in the last five years.
Boutsianis was savagely villified by the Kingz crowd all game. You could hear him being shouted down, jokes about robberies, sirens being turned on, rotating red lights run off car batteries, fans holding up a myriad of signage and plenty of verbal abuse in the tunnel at half time and full time. I think you can safely say there is no love lost between Kingz fans and Con Boutsianis/South Melbourne. No one will forget this arsehole taking over a hundred grand in wages and deserting the club without playing a game or being man enough to pay a good portion of the money back. He and they, are the team Kingz fans will always love to hate. But bearing that in mind, Stergiopoulos and Osman in particular got some good friendly chants from the fans that appreciated their time with the club.
Noah Hickey ran rings around Souths players all evening and his goal was just the simplest one I have seen in years as Souths stood still and let Jeff Campbell curl a beautiful left footed cross over the defence where both Harry Ngata and Hickey managed to beat the offside trap. Ngata drew Theoklitos out and tapped the ball across the goal mouth for Hickey to drive in from 3 metres. Anyone that has seen the final goal scored in the movie MEAN MACHINE will have a fair understanding of how this goal was scored.
The South Melbourne "legacy" is also one of the reasons why the Kingz have fallen off the rails. A former SM coach that ran off with his tail between his legs because he didn't have the balls to take a 7-0 loss, Kalagorakas who came promising good things and left without playing a match ala Boutsianis. Thye sucked money from our club and there is forever a bad taste about South Melbourne, and that is what made last nights victory ever so sweet. It's the first time I've got pissed in a number of years. I was not in any shape or form to consider driving my car anywhere and I awoke this morning amongst a pile of empty Trapist monk type beer and three pizza boxes with enough leftovers to cover breakfast this morning.
The replay later today should be fantastic....and Norwich won too. Being perfectly blunt, it's been a fucking good weekend's footy.