The Central Coast Mariners secured a home semi-final in the A-League Pre-Season Cup after defeating Sydney FC 3-0 in Canberra on Sunday afternoon.
In front of a meagre crowd of 5,735 the Mariners took care of business and booked a semi-final with Perth Glory, while Sydney lost their 100% record in the nation's capital.
Both teams were missing significant key players, but it was Sydney that felt the loss more. With six players unavailable, coach Branko Culina knew it was going to be a difficult, and for him, a learning experience to see what was available to him. "I knew it would be struggle", stated Culina believing more so now that his team may not be ready for the season opener.
Whilst finding some positives through the introduction of Tony Popovic at half-time and the good play from Terry McFlynn and Alex Brosque, it was more the negatives that concern the Sydney coach.
Dissapointing was the loss of young Canberran Adam Casey to an injury that will cause another gap in the team, and Culina's one word comment on American Michael Enfield was "rubbish".
For the victors, Lawrie McKinna was pleased both with the fact that his team came through without injury and that they competed well throughout the game. In the second half "I thought we controlled the game well', said McKinna. "Before the break, it was the final pass that let us down."
Yet, it wasn't the final pass that caused any problems with the two excellent goals in that first stanza. Having survived an onslaught from the Sydney-siders and seeing both David Zdrilic and Brendan Santalab squander very good opportunities, it took a long range strike from Matthew Osman to break the deadlock with ten minutes left in the half.
Unable to clear from a corner, the ball came out to Andre Gumprecht in the centre of the park, just outside the box. His delicate layoff was met sweetly by Osman directing his shot to the top right corner with Sydney custodian Clint Bolton only a spectator.
Then just before the break, the Sydney defence were caught by a chip from Nik Mrdja. With the defence flat-footed, Adam Kwasnik slid in and tipped the ball over the advancing Bolton to double the score.
The scoreline read that the Mariners were two-nil ahead at the break, and although not a fair indication of the play, the two superb strikes both deserved the result they achieved.
Sydney came out firing, and one of the lesser respected players from the Mariners, goalkeeper Matthew Trott kept his side two ahead when he stopped, at point blank, a shot from Brosque.
That was vital as the Mariners sealed the game five minutes later with a wonder-volley from 22m out.
Gumprecht latched onto a punched clearance from Bolton defending a corner. The strike capped a trifecta of great goals.
The game tended to peter out after this with only strikes from Brosque, again superbly saved by Trott, and a header from Mrdja mssing the target from close range, being the highlights. The Mariners settled down and played possession forcing Sydney FC to chase and take the game to them.
Unfortunately, even when Culina altered the formation, it had little effect. Such was the dominance in this period that McKinna had the luxury of bringing on the likes of Tom Pondeljak and Tony Vidmar late in the game.
Both teams were looking forward to heading home after much travelling, but it appears after this game, that it will be the Mariners who will look ahead and Sydney FC who will need to return to the training paddock and get ready for the season opener at the end of August, ironically, a home fixture against these same Mariners.
The Central Coast Mariners play Perth Glory in Gosford next Saturday 4 August 2007 at 6pm in a Cup semi-final.