I parked about 1.5 km away, and was able to walk to the ground much faster than the traffic which was heading in that direction - a postive sign, I thought. I had pre-bought my ticket, and was glad I did - there were at least 1500 people in the queue for tickets as I walked into the ground just after 5 - kickoff was delayed by a few minutes to get more people in - Sydneysiders are notorious for turning up to events right on starting time. When I got in the bottom tier along both sides looked nearly full, and Bay 23 and the bays to either side were bulging. The far end of the ground (the SCG end) was quite sparsly populated, but as more people came in that was filled, and I think the 25000 crowd was pretty accurate.
Now, to the match. Pretty much the old cliche - a game of two halves. In the first half Sydney dominated possession, with Melbourne seemingly content to defend in depth and break quickly on the counter. Melbourne's defence looked solid, and Sydney didn't seem to have a lot of idea as to how to break it down. It was a lot like watching Northern Spirit - lots of passing the ball around the box, but not much in the way of shots being taken. Sydney also showed a complete dearth of ideas on set pieces - pretty much all their corners came in at a comfortable heading height to the near post - the Melbourne defence didn't really look concerned in dealing with them.
On the other hand, Melbourne were looking dangerous on the counter - Thompson was finding way too much space, and was unlucky not to give the visitors the lead when he hit the crossbar. However, Sydney continued to apply the majority of the pressure and, finally, Yorke managed to find a little bit of space, and that was all he needed - a nicely headed goal from about the penalty spot. Sydney 1-0.
In the second half, things were quite different. Melbourne obviously needed to attack more, and they certainly did. The match was much more open in the second half. Melbourne, and particularly Thompson, continued to look dangerous in attack, and probably had the better of the chances on offer. The big difference occurred in midfield, which the Victory had pretty much conceded in the first half. In the second half, they contested every ball, and were hungrier for possession than Sydney. So, it was really no surprise when Melbourne equalised. Thompson was (again) given too much space, and put a nicely taken header beyond Bolton.
For much of the remainder of the game, I was thinking that we would do well to get out of this with a draw. In the end, Melbourne would probably be thinking that they should have won the match. Melbourne seem to have a very solid defence, and Thompson will score a lot of goals if he keeps this form up. Sydney, as many people's pre-season favourites, have a lot of work to do. Their defence looked shaky, they appeared to struggle for ideas to get past Melbournes defence, their passing tended to go astray rather too often, and they needed to show more hunger for the ball in midfield. This performance was nowhere near as good as the performance that saw them defeat the Mariners to win the Club World Championship qualifiers.
The majority of the crowd, however, seemed to have enjoyed themselves - there was certainly a positive vibe about the place when leaving the ground - and there were a lot of people in the merchandise store after the game, so perhaps I am being overly critical.