ADELAIDE FORCE THEIR WAY OUT OF BALLYMORE JAIL

The Brisbane Strikers continued their dismal run of early-season home results in the most heartbreaking and inexplicable of fashions last night, beaten 3-2 by Adelaide City Force.

When the Strikers took a 2-0 lead into the half-time break their first home victory of the season looked almost assured against a side they had simply played off the park for forty-five minutes. But, while the Strikers had the Force in jail, they had already failed to put away a number of scoring chances which, if converted, would have thrown away the key to the cell door. Then, as so often happens in football, their missed chances came back to haunt them later on as the Force produced a stunning second half revival to snatch away all three points.

While Strikers supporters once again left disappointed with the result, they can hardly complain about the entertainment provided by a match which had lots of goalmouth action, goals and scoring chances aplenty, and the now almost ritual display of bizarre refereeing and resulting controversy. Chances are, though, some of those supporters by now would be prepared to settle for a boring 1-0 win.

The tone of the match was set as early as the first minute, when Brisbane midfielder David Pilic produced a shot which flashed wide of Daniel Godley’s right hand post after being set up by Anthony Roche, who was playing in his first starting role for the Strikers. Three minutes later Roche was involved again, heading over the top from a well-flighted cross from the right.

The early flow of the game was all towards the Adelaide goal, with the Strikers making regular inroads down the left channel where Matthew McKay and Shane Stefanutto were combining beautifully. After thirteen minutes another attacking foray by the Strikers resulted in a corner on the right. The usual outswinger was met by the head of Fernando Rech who had, just for a moment, escaped the attentions of Gianluca Lagati and had a clear sight of goal. Unfortunately, the Brazilian’s downward-directed header bounced over the bar.

Two minutes later another cross from the right found Grierson at the far post but his intelligent header aimed just inside the opposite post hit Adelaide defender Ante Kovacevic on the back and bounced out for a corner.

A pattern already seemed to be emerging - the home team attacking with purpose, creating opportunities, but failing to hit the target. But any nervous misgivings that Strikers supporters might have been feeling at this stage were calmed when the Adelaide defence made a high clearance in the seventeenth minute to break up another Strikers attack only to find big Stephen Laybutt heading the ball back high over the advancing Adelaide back four. Fernando Rech, showing admirable anticipation, raced in behind the defence and beat Godley to the bouncing ball to head over him and into the net for a 1-0 lead.

This was the cue for a relieved roar of approval from the Strikers supporters, who had just witnessed their team hit the lead for the first time at home this season. And only three minutes later those supporters were on even better terms with themselves when the home team got its second goal. Stefanutto and McKain again combined well down the left before getting a pass in to Roche who was about then yards from goal and tightly marked. Roche managed to turn and get a shot away that ricocheted off an Adelaide defener to fall for Grierson who managed to volley the ball in at Godley’s near post, apparently with his left shin.

The home side continued to press forward, and McKay was put clean through on goal in the twenty-sixth minute but rather poked at his shot which was touched into the side netting by Godley. From the resulting corner, McLaren headed over after Steve Laybutt had nodded the ball across to him from the back post. A further chance was squandered five minutes later when a rare Adelaide attack broke down and left the Strikers with a three-on-two situation which resulted in Grierson setting up Pilic for a shot just inside the penalty area. Pilic, for perhaps the fourth time in the half, had done all the hard work to get himself into a promising position, but failed to force Godley to make a save - lofting his shot over the bar. Two minutes later McKay was through again, but his shot towards the far post was saved brilliantly by Godley.

In all of this time, the Force had barely created a chance, a few ineffective free kicks from long range and a Pelosi header over the bar being the best moments they had mustered. Most of the time they been backpeddling, trying to hold out a relentless yellow tide.

But the second half saw the tide turn as a more determined Force side, marshalled cleverly by the ageless Aurelio Vidmar, began to achieve some penetration down the flanks behind Alagich and Stefanutto. In the fiftieth minute, Jason Kearton in the Strikers’ goal had his first serious save to make, keeping out a header at his far post with fine reflexes.

Ten minutes into the half Adelaide coach Charlie Villani brought on his young striker Scott Tunbridge, whose absence from the starting side was a mystery considering the impact he soon made. Tunbridge’s pace and spring-heeled heading ability added an extra dimension to the Force’s attacking play. He had barely been on the pitch a minute when he rose unmarked in the middle of the penalty area to head over from a cross swung in from the left.

The Force had been having their best spell of the match, but the Strikers appeared to have weathered it, producing a chance of their own when Pilic produced perhaps his first shot on target - a bullet from about twenty yards which Godley could not hold but managed to deflect over the bar.

Soon after, however, disaster struck for the home side when an attack down the right wing by Adelaide City produced one of those driven, low square balls across the face of goal that defenders, running towards their own goal, find so hard to deal with. On this occasion the ball appeared to this supporter to have hit Brisbane’s skipper Stuart McLaren, who was racing back to provide cover, before finishing in the net, but the goal was awarded to Claudio Pelosi.

McLaren’s head-in-hands reaction, momentary though it was, perhaps portrayed a gathering feeling of unease throughout the ranks of the Strikers players and supporters. The rising black and white tide refused to abate. Chances, both volleys, soon fell to Lozanovski and Tunbridge but were saved by Kearton.

By now, Stikers coach John Kosmina, sensing his team was losing its way, had begun using his substitutes bench, bringing on Kris Trajanovski in place of Pilic and Lawrence Drake for Richie Alagich. The latter substitution necessitated a reshuffle of the defence, with McKain being pushed out to right full-back and McLaren dropping into the back four.

This did nothing to change the flow of the game. The Force kept pressing and, in truth, were helped to do so by a spell of puzzling refereeing which saw the Strikers penalised for a string of alleged offences and pinned inside their own half. In the seventy-sixth minute a cross from Pantelic on the left was met by a fantastic leap at the far post by Tunbridge who managed to direct his header back to a team mate who volleyed a shot at Kearton’s goal. Kearton did well to react and block the shot, but it fell to Pelosi who was left with a tap-in to tie the scores.

If this wasn’t bad enough for the disbelieving Strikers fans, only two minutes later Grierson was dispossesed in midfield, and some neat interplay by the now rampant Force forwards resulted in Aurelio Vidmar slotting the ball past Kearton for the winning goal.

While the shattered Strikers supporters tried to lift their team for an equaliser, it never looked likely to come. The home team appeared, to all intents and purposes, to have stopped playing football after around forty minutes, and simply could not rediscover the habit. In fact, the best chance in the last ten minutes fell to the visitors when Pelosi beat the Strikers’ offside trap with a run from inside his own half only to be foiled by a good save from Kearton, who narrowed the angle and blocked his Pelosi’s shot.

When the final whistle was blown by an increasingly unpopular referee (who was roundly booed) it was almost a merciful release for the home team and supporters - all of whom seemed befuddled, bewildered and bothered by the question "what went wrong"?

Whatever the reasons, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that John Kosmina and his troops now have some extremely awkward post-mortems to conduct if they are to turn around a run of results which threatens to leave them at the starting blocks in the sprint to make the top six. Testing, and character-building times, lie ahead - and they begin with the unwelcome task of a visit next weekend to the NSL’s most inhospitable ground to take on the Melbourne Knights.

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