I was able to watch the STRIKERS "grand final" replay, as Optus repeatedly billed it, in the auspicious company of the TFP folk and I'd like to make a few observations from a one-eyed STRIKERS fan's perspective.
I feel that this was our best performance so far this season. There was some sign of a plan and we actually counted a series of 15 successive passes in one movement. The CC was so low as to be unrecordable! Andy Harper was useful for several minutes and once beat two successive players before losing the ball!. Clint Bolton's awful gaffe which basically lost us 2 points seemed to be the result of a mistimed jump to push the ball over the bar, but he made some good saves in the second half. His ditribution, however, was still woeful and he punted the ball into touch on several occasions ( I didn't think rugby union was that big in Bundaberg). FF had a better game and he occasionally shows that little flash of class that lifts my spirits - deft touches, angled well weighted passes and turns that are still head and shoulders above most in the national league. Chey Hughes is becoming a very useful player and is now the best of the up-and-coming brigade at least until Casey Wehrman gets back (so long to wait). Knipe almost stole a point near the end but for the Tall and Thin left arm - he also seemed to stop one slipping underneath him with his scrotum at one stage.
Lovely playing surface, hardly heard the "Cro-atia" chant all night, so perhaps the move away from Ed Park has upset some of the more nationalistic supporters - certainly the small crowd could be explained by that. Personally, I think it a shame if it's so.