Brisbane Strikers 0, Kingz FC 2!.

Those are the cold and heartless figures which capture the outcome of another 94 minutes of NSL action at Ballymore tonight - a set of numbers that mundanely hint to those who were not there that the Strikers lost their sixth home match on end tonight with barely a whimper.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The figures do no justice whatsoever to the spectacle that unfolded tonight. In particular, they do no justice to the football played by the home side. This particular football supporter has seen some cruel events unfold on football fields, but few have left a more sickened feeling in the gut than this one.

"Now is not the time to change anything except our luck", Strikers coach John Kosmina had said the day before the match when he stuck faithfully to the squad that lost its last match, against Parramatta Power. But after watching what happened to his team, the only fair assumption that can be drawn is that Kosmina must, in the recent past, have kicked a mangy black cat all the way from Ballymore to Burketown for him to deserve what happened.

Why? Because Kosmina produced a team which for all but a few moments played their opposition off the park, only to be brought undone by a mixture of inaccurate or unfortunate finishing, superb goalkeeping and, it must be said, absolutely unfathomable officiating by the men in green.

The Strikers began the match looking sharp and committed, with Fernando Rech and Kris Trajanovski buzzing about up front, supplied by equally energetic midfielders Matthew McKay and David Pilic. After four minutes the home side won a corner which, after a half-cleared header, fell to Steve Laybutt at volleying height. In a sign of what was to come, Laybutt hit his volley over the bar with the Kingz defence caught in no-man’s land.

Most of the opening ten minutes was rather cagey stuff, with the Strikers adopting a new vigilance when not in possession, dropping behind the ball and denying the Kingz any openings. But in the eleventh minute the home side burst into life when a raid down the left flank and a low cross from Stefanutto was played laid off by McKay to the feet of Fernando. The Brazilian’s low shot on the turn was goalbound, but Michael Utting in the Kingz goal flung himself to his left to make a wonderful one-handed save, turning the ball away for a corner.

Only a minute later, another Strikers attack finished with Pilic striking a daisy cutter just wide of Utting’s right-hand post, with the keeper this time beaten. The Kingz hit back in the thirteenth minute with their first real attack of the game when Harry Ngata grazed Jason Kearton’s crossbar with a volley from centre-field just outside the Brisbane penalty area

But the inventiveness and energy of the home side’s play was causing the Kingz problems aplenty, constantly opening up their defence, and it seemed just a matter of time before the home supporters’ chants of "score in a minute, we’re gonna score in a minute", would be vindicated. Fernando, who looked "up" for this encounter, was a persistent threat when picking up the ball and running from deep. For his troubles, the Brazilian was hit in a crunching late tackle by a Kingz defender after about fifteen minutes and spent a minute or two in obvious pain on the turf while the Kingz defenders conducted an inquest among themselves and a slanging match with their opponents.

Straight after the restart, McKay was pole-axed by another Kingz defender when lining up a volley on the edge of the box. To the disgust of the home side and its fans, neither McKay’s fouler, nor Fernando’s, was dealt with harshly by referee Angelo Nardi, and a certain uneasy tone in proceedings began to develop.

The resulting free kick by Trajanovski was blocked by a wall set all of six metres behind the ball, and once again no action was taken. From the resulting broken play, Pilic hit a scorching low volley to Utting’s left which was again brilliantly saved, one-handed, by the self-confessed recovering alcoholic whose work was, by now, taking on a champagne quality.

Five minutes later, Fernando broke free down the middle and fired a shot just wide of Utting’s post, and then only a minute or two after that Trajanovski was put into the clear down the right after a desperate "get" by Richie Alagich on the right touchline. Trajanovski waited for support before curving a top-quality outswinging low cross beyond Utting and into the path of Fernando, whose stretch in the six-yard box just failed to see him connect with the ball with the goal at his mercy, to the despair of the fans.

Next, in the twenty fourth minute, a beautifully flighted right-footed inswinging cross by Pilic from wide on the left found Fernando’s head. With the keeper beaten the ball went over the top of his crossbar to more agonised groans from the home team’s supporters.

With six good chances for the home team having failed to find their way into the Kingz goal, it was easy to get that familiar feeling that they would soon suffer retribution at the other end. And so it was. In the twenty-fifth minute, and with the Kingz’ second serious attack of the game, Andy Vlahos managed to wriggle free towards the left of the Strikers’ penalty area to square the ball for a scuffed shot by Ngata that beat the exposed Jason Kearton to give the away team a totally undeserved 1-0 lead.

Once again facing a deficit at home, the Brisbane team’s response was immediate - and ultimately ill fated. Almost from the kick-off, a nod-on at the edge of the Kingz penalty area was placed magically into the path of Fernando Rech who raced into the box at full tilt. As Utting raced from his line Fernando toed the ball past him, Utting dived at his feet and Fernando went sprawling to the ground for what the supporters at the southern end of the stand, and almost immediately over the top of the incident, claimed immediately as a penalty. Referee Nardi, a million metres behind the play, thought otherwise and produced a yellow card to the incredulous Brazilian - apparently for diving. A penalty denied to the home side, and the referee beginning to produce a vintage stinker - it was all looking ominously familiar.

In the twenty-eighth minute the home side’s agonies continued as McKay, placed into a one-on-one with Utting, got the ball past him but unfortunately also past his left post, for another chance to go begging. "On the law of averages", one supporter was heard to say, "we’re bound to get one in sometime".

As the Strikers continued to tear at a Kingz defence that was resembling rabbits caught in headlights, a series of seriously deluded offside decisions against Strikers forwards continued to frustrate them and anger their supporters. After only about 35 minutes, this particular supporter was wondering whether he was perhaps seeing the worst officiating at an NSL match in his memory. And yet, amazingly, worse was still to come.

Despite the adversity, the home side continued to delight its supporters with the quality of its play. In the forty-second minute they should have been rewarded when a scorching volley from Fernando, from all of twenty-five metres, left Utting for once helpless and stranded, only to strike the crossbar and stay out. Almost from the next play, it seemed, a wonderfully worked exchange of passes down the left wing enabled Stefanutto to curl an exquisite cross onto the head of Fernando. This time, the Brazilian’s glancing header beat both Utting and the post.

Unjustly, the home side went in at half time still behind by the solitary goal. A few minutes after the restart the Kingz’ Chilean international Patricio Almendra was set up with a clear opportunity inside the Strikers’ penalty area, but blasted the chance harmlessly wide. But less than a minute later normal service was resumed when Utting was again brought into serious action, diving to his left to keep out an effort from Trajanovski who had shaken off the Kingz defence with a determined run before skimming a left-footed shot at goal.

After fifty minutes, McKay was the next to join the queue of players taking pot shots at the Kingz goal. This time, a left footer was curled beyond Utting’s despairing dive but again failed to hit the target. A few minutes later, Alagich joined the fray, having been put clear towards the right side of the penalty area by a superb pass from Stefanutto. Alagich lined up a piledriver which flashed past Utting but across the face of the goal.

The Kingz defence was being ripped to shreds, with still no result for the Strikers. Then, in the fifty-fourth minute, disaster struck for the home team. Fernando, in midfield, committed himself to a late but rather harmless-looking tackle on Raffaele De Gregorio, who made a large meal of it. Referee Nardi, confirming that discretion was not in his refereeing kit bag, immediately produced a second yellow card to the Strikers’ go-to man and sentenced him to an early shower.

By now the crowd was in uproar and the players were engaged in a melee in the centre of the field as Nardi’s handling of the match turned Ballymore ugly. Soon after play resumed, another exquisite interchange of passes at the edge of the box enabled McKay to hit a shot on the turn which was again brilliantly saved by Utting, who was looking simply unbeatable by anything on target. Then, in the sixtieth minute, Steve Laybutt (who had been pushed up front in a tactical change by Kosmina after Fernando’s send-off), fed a great pass to McKay, whose umpteenth shot was mishit towards Trajanovski. Trajanovski reacted beautifully to volley it beyond Utting but, as with everything else that the keeper had failed to glove, the ball narrowly missed the target.

Referee Nardi continued, meanwhile, to earn the wrath of home fans with a series of decisions right in front of the main grandstand which appeared to show, on occasions, breathtaking inconsistency in applying the rules of the game. At one point, Almendra threw himself theatrically to the ground after a legitimate shoulder charge on the touchline by a Strikers player, in a cynical and obvious attempt to have his opponent carded. Home fans, remembering Fernando’s yellow card for "diving" in the first half were left seething when Almendra was not dealt with similarly.

But back to the football. It took the Kingz, despite their numerical advantage, until the sixty-fourth minute to trouble the home team’s defence in any way, with a tame shot by Almendra being the best they could muster to that point.

Then back came the relentless tide of yellow shirts once more, with McKay producing an inch-perfect pass to present Laybutt with an opportunity for a shot on goal. The big man dipped into his bag of surprises for a beautifully-weighted chip which Utting, yet again, used to cover himself in glory with a fingertip save at full stretch. By now, home supporters had just about resigned themselves to the feeling that ‘it was just not meant to be’. Another point-blank save by Utting a minute later from Rose confirmed it.

Finally, the effort of throwing so much at the Kingz while a man short told on the home side. In the eightieth minute a rare Kingz foray involving some clever one-two’s down the left, led to a shot being fired in at Kearton, who made a good reflex save. The rebound fell to Almendra, near the by-line close to Kearton’s left hand upright. Almendra, showing a touch of class, managed to jink his way around Kearton and a defender to plant a shot high into the net for the match sealer.

The jig was up for the home team, and possibly the season too, although on the quality of this display we shoud never write them off. But there was one more moment of drama and controversy after Nardi blew the final whistle when some nasty scenes erupted on the field as Almendra, for reasons not known but suspected to be connected with his own cynicism, found himself the target of considerable anger from Stuart McLaren and several of his team mates.

Perhaps this was a fitting epitaph for what was, surely, one of the most infuriating refereeing performances seen in Brisbane for some time. And let’s be perfectly frank - in a season which has already featured several of those at Ballymore, that is saying a lot. But just in case you feel that this particular football supporter is simply being one-eyed, let me relate a short conversation after the match with a Strikers fan of many years, but a referee of many more.

That individual had steam pouring out of his ears, claiming that having seen the referee’s performance he was now ashamed to call himself one. "I’ve often defended them (referees) over the years", he said "but not this time! That was bloody diabolical"

What perturbed him most about it was that, having quite possibly terminated a team’s season with a performance of staggering inconsistency in this game, and having probably alienated several hundred more precious supporters from ever turning up to another NSL game, the referee was accountable to nobody and nothing would be done about his performance.

We’ll say no more about the officiating. In the final analysis, the objective among us might argue that the Strikers lost because they did not make the most of their opportunities. Not a single one of some seventeen excellent opportunities the home side created made it into the back of the net, while the away team coverted two of about five.

But there are times when objective analysis falls short of telling the story. This was one of those times. The Strikers were outstanding tonight, brave and glorious in wretched defeat. Surely not too many teams have been more comprehensively outplayed at Ballymore as the Kingz were. That they came away with any points at all, let alone all three, is a football miracle.

Best Strikers player: Kris Trajanovski, at a pinch, but really there really eleven of them..

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