Another lacklustre game at Marconi, and the atmosphere different to previous Olympic encounters, with an obviously despondent Olympic support not even contributing ONE O-L-M-Y-P-I-C chant all night.
Strange but true.
Olympic looked, not unsurprisingly, to be lacking confidence at the start, and a *good* side would have put 4 or 5 past them on the night, as they were there for the humping.
The fact that Marconi could only draw, probably says as much about Marconi's championship chances as anything else, and I certainly wouldn't discount Canberra getting another victory over a Sydney side next week on this performnce.
Mr. Matic's penchant for having his team play passes to each other in defence until the spectators fall asleep, nearly worked, and I remember saying to my missus, "wake me up when the ball goes over the half way line".
Acting on instructions, Dominic Longo did what every under 7 coach tells his side not to do, and passed, or tried to pass, a ball along his own 18 yard line, the ball was intercepted, and Marconi were 1-0 down.
Although Maloney equalised in the first half, and Marconi had by far the greater share of possession in the second, and should have scored a few, I never really expected them to do so, and I suspect, that feeling was shared by the majority of regular supporters.
Didn't hear the crowd figure, but I'd reckon about 7000 plus.
And take a bow, whoever you were ref.
Here we actually had a human being in the referees shirt last night, who on two ocassions allowed himself to smile at the good natured abuse that was directed at him - he even laughed at one of my jokes, so he must be all right!
He went from being a ref who was a 'wanker' to a 'legend' in literally one foul swoop, when he red carded Jean Paul DeMariney, although I was sorry to see JP be sent off on his return to Bossley Park.
Still, if you do the crime, be prepared to do the time.
In summary it was a result that probably suited neither of the two sides, and its looking more and more like Sydney United will be the harbour city's only representative in the top six series.