Game 2 of the Dempsey Memorial Competitive Series was welcomed by another too early kickoff for the punters, and another crowd that came close to the lowest Aussie effort ever in a WC qualifier. By next Thursday there will only be 5 people there and I will be out of one-liners.
Bay 63 it was again, for the first half, but we learnt our lesson of the other nite and shifted up to Bay 69 for the second half. Sorry to abandon you Zelko, but one has to be near the actual game, and you didn't wear long pants for nothing, did you. After all, Bosnich is still in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber regaining blood supply to his limbs after Wed nite.
Mike Cockerill of SMH promised us that Tahiti would be the weaker of the Island teams, but it was not to be. He was clearly fooled by the clever Tahitian plot to lull him into a false sense of security. I think also that we have played Tahiti too often over recent years, and they have learned Eddie Thomson's tactics - stick 9 defenders and 1 striker on.
Every Australian eleven has a representative goose in the front line for each game, someone that regularly blows it right in front. There were a few tonight, but the Bowman Long Neck and Feathers Award goes to Trimboli. I know Damian or someone will flame me as Lance did after Mori's presentation on Wed :-). But guys, scoring goals against these characters is no criteria for success.
A. Vidmar did a little better tonite, hell he needs more match practice. Moore was brilliant and the mechanics worked hard on the hundred year old Cyber-Arnie to keep all his replacement parts going.
Lazaridis came on, and after his impressive form the other nite, was received well by the fans. It has always struck me that his arms and legs (and ears for that matter) are too long, relative to the torso; but all of these collectively fall short of the difficulties in the name:
"Vladimir, what shall we name him?"
"We are Australian now, we must follow local traditions."
"Yes but what name?"
"I built our house with sweat and good Australian tools. See this cutting
knife - it has good Aussie name. We call our boy - STAN-LEY"
In any event Stan was cheered with every ball, as word plays on the name continued.
I don't care if no-one shows up. They're missing a lot of fun. The lower the crowds and the greater the scores, the more Oceania is held up to be ridiculous.