So dire was the quality of football on show at Westpac Stadium on December 14 that one has to wonder if as poor a Hyundai A-League encounter has taken place this season!
Wellington Phoenix and Queensland Roar stumbled and bumbled their way to a quite awful 1-1 draw in this seventeenth round encounter. It was so inept a spectacle that one wondered if the 9384 present were watching a match between the New Zealand Knights and the third-year version of the Football Kingz - yes, it really was that insipid!!
The game abounded in mediocrity. So bad were the outfield players that referee Ben Williams, whose displays rarely rise above the contemptible at the best of times, was named man-of-the-match, this after the crowd had chanted ?All we want is a decent referee!?
Occasionally, and I emphasise occasionally, some football broke out?
Queensland got off to the ideal start in the fourth minute when Robbie Kruse broke down the right and steered the ball inside to Massimo Murdocca. His low cross was dummied by the incoming Matt McKay to Reinaldo, who had time to control the ball before picking his spot from six yards out.
The visitors then survived genuine penalty claims when Stuart McLaren was guilty of handling the ball in his attempt to clear a threatening cross. The only person in the ground who didn't see it was the referee - funny, that!
After Marcinho had pulled a shot wide of the near post, Liam Reddy, who, like his opposite number, Glen Moss, was little troubled in this awful advertisement for the beautiful game, threw the ball out beyond the half-way line to Reinaldo, who cut infield before setting up Murdocca for a twenty-five yarder. Moss tipped this eighteenth minute effort round the post.
Wellington responded seven minutes later with an equaliser. Moments after Vince Lia's dipping volley had just cleared Queensland's crossbar, Shane Smeltz caught McLaren in possession and raced into the visitors? penalty area, from where he buried the ball in the top far corner of the net to level the scores, and fire himself to the top of the Golden Boot charts - this was his eighth strike of the season.
The home team looked to build on the momentum that goal gave them, with Lia releasing Ahmad Elrich in the 29th minute. He cut inside and crossed to the far post, anticipating Vaughan Coveny's run towards that upright. Instead, he'd come to the near post ? it was that sort of game.
Queensland responded with efforts inside the next five minutes from Marcinho and Reinaldo, with the former's attempt being blocked, then cleared by Michael Ferrante. But the spectacle was already grinding to a halt by this stage, and it says a great deal that there was just one noteworthy moment of goalmouth action over the course of the next half-hour.
That came about on the stroke of half-time, when Felipe Campos played a little ball to reward the darting run of Lia, who slipped Smeltz in on goal. Unfortunately for Wellington, he couldn't direct his shot on target.
In the 62nd minute, Lia attempted a diving header but found himself on the wrong end of Murdocca's boot, as the midfielder lunged to clear the threat. After treatment, the Wellington player returned to the pitch sporting a fetching bandage around his chin.
It speaks volumes that this was the lone noteworthy event of the first twenty-five minutes of the second half! But just when all hope seemed lost, attempts on goal at each of the park in a six-minute spell, allied to a string of substitutions, briefly stirred the game to life.
Wellington pressed first, a neat interchange between Lia and Smeltz rewarding Coveny's incisive run through the inside left channel. Sadly for the striker, and the spectacle, he shot tamely at Reddy, his effort in keeping with the mediocrity in which this match was by now thoroughly embroiled.
Queensland responded in the 76th minute, Hyuk Su Seo ignoring the tiresome boos from the terraces to surge into Wellington's half, where he linked with Matt McKay. He played the ball onto Chris Grossman, but the substitute was unable to make any headway. Hence a return pass to McKay, whose twenty-yarder flew straight at Moss.
After this brief flurry, the match returned to the level of excitement one expects to witness in a morgue! Yet in its dying moments, an unlikely winner came close to materialising.
Tony Lochhead launched the ball forward, and Coveny gave chase as Sasa Ognenovski hesitated, unaware that the striker was bearing down on him at a great rate of knots while he endeavoured to escort the ball back to Reddy.
The goalkeeper grabbed it eventually, but only after Coveny had just failed to get a touch, and the earful the custodian gave his defender offered more, in entertainment terms, than had been witnessed throughout the course of this embarrassing encounter, one which was witnessed by Wellington's 100,000th spectator to attend a home game this season.
How ironic that the fledgling club should produce a display reminiscent of their predecessors' dark days on the occasion of such a milestone, one about which they're rightly proud.