02/11/02 Marconi Stallions |
The Brisbane Strikers’ quarter-season of torment continued unabated at Ballymore tonight as the team crashed to its fourth straight home loss, this time humiliated 4-1 by the Marconi Stallions.
The result means the Brisbane team now takes Marconi’s spot at the bottom of the NSL table.
It is always dangerous to try to sum up a performance like this only a few hours after it has occurred, but it must be said that the home team turned in a performance tonight which dispirited even their thickest-skinned supporters.
Most supporters would agree that it was always going to be a little difficult for the team to compensate for the loss of two of its better players in Peter Grierson and Steve Laybutt, who were both absent through suspension. But when the fans arrived at the ground to discover that Fernando Rech was also missing due to an injury sustained late in the week, and Jon McKain was mysteriously warming a spot on the bench, there was a sense that the Strikers were about to face an uphill struggle, even against the bottom club.
And so it proved. The creativity of Grierson and Fernando up front was sorely missed, but it was at the back that things were truly ugly. Marconi, a team which had scored only three goals in five games before tonight, appeared to simply stride through paper-thin defence on far too many occasions, particularly on the Strikers’ right flank, and were probably under-represented on the scoreboard by the end of the game. Or at least they would have been had the electronic scoreboard been functioning. In what was to be a blessing for the home side, the scoreboard remained stubbornly blank all night.
New Marconi signing Joe Spiteri enjoyed a fruitful return to the NSL, and didn’t have to wait long to get on to the scoresheet. After only eleven minutes Marconi broke down a Strikers attack in midfield and Chad Gibson threaded a regulation through-ball into the inside-left channel. Spiteri was able to run on to it without breaking stride and outpaced the Strikers defence to slot the ball coolly along the ground past Kearton and into the net for the lead.
The first half ground on quite uneventfully, with not enough creativity being shown by the home side to create many scoring opportunities and Marconi looking the more threatening team. On the left flank, diminutive Marconi fullback Shane Webb was getting forward to very good effect and causing a great amount of consternation in an uncertain Strikers penalty area with his dangerous crossing. The best that could be said for the home side was that they were at least competing ruggedly for the 50/50 balls that, when won, can do so much to influence the flow of a game.
The Stallions went into the break with their lead intact and, after an opening flurry or two by the home side, they soon got a grip on the second half. The Strikers’ back four of Stefanutto, McLaren, Heath and Webber continued to look ill at ease and it was no real surprise when, in the fifty-first minute Marconi striker Tony Perinich was put clean through the Strikers defence, again down the left, and was able to take the ball around Kearton to put it away for Marconi’s second.
A groan followed by a rather funereal silence emanated from the stands as the home fans began to come to grips with the prospect of another home loss. Soon, though, the silence was broken by the first sacrilegious chants of "Kossie out" - more in humour, it must be said, than with serious intent at this point, but it was not the last time such chants would be heard during the game.
On the pitch the home side responded rather better than the fans, picking up the tempo and intensity of their game. Matthew McKay in particular was running at Marconi’s defenders like a mongrel dog looking for a fight. It was McKay’s determination and vision, five minutes after the Marconi goal, that released John Carbone down the same inside-left channel that Spiteri had used to good effect earlier. Carbone, to his credit, while not the quickest of players had the ‘attitude’ required to sprint into the box, wherein he was met with an ill-advised tackle from a Marconi defender. Carbone hit the ground at speed and referee Matthew Breeze, some fifteen or twenty metres behind, had no hesitation in blowing for a penalty. Kris Trajanovski demanded the right to take the spot kick, then strode up to make light of some psychological gamesmanship from Marconi keeper Michael Turnbull and tuck the ball into the corner of the net for a 1-2 scoreline.
For five minutes or so, with the home side doing the attacking, it looked as if the game was salvageable for them. In the sixty-second minute a header by Pilic from a cross by Carbone had Turnbull stretching to prevent the ball looping over his head and into the net and a few minutes later Turnbull made a good close-range save from Joshua Rose (who had replaced Carbone). But that was as good as it got for Brisbane, for another piece of negligent defending allowed Marconi in again when Tony Sekulic was left unmarked at the back post to turn in a header from a cross from the right.
Despite further inventive work from McKay and Rose, who were showing more experienced team mates a thing or two about ‘ticker’, from this point on there was only ever going to be one outcome. That outcome was rammed home in the eighty-second minute when Spiteri got his second after the Strikers’ right flank was exposed yet again. This time Spiteri was set up inside the six-yard by Alex Brosque, who appeared to stride past three defenders before squaring a ball for for Spiteri to tap in. Simple football, perfectly executed for an emphatic scoreline of 4-1.
When the final whistle went it was a relief to the home fans and the team. To their credit, despite enduring a shocker, most of the Brisbane Strikers players trooped across to the grandstand to sign autographs and chat to those supporters brave enough to go to the touchline.
But it has to be said that to lose your first four games of the season at home, and the last of them by a humiliating scoreline to the only side behind you on the table, is simply unacceptable for any club that has ambition. Sadly, supporters were leaving in droves well before the full time whistle tonight. Hard questions must be asked within the club this week, and answers to them have to be found, or those supporters might not be coming back.
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