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At Ballymore yesterday Brisbane suffered a stunning defeat by the Melbourne Knights for the second season in a row.  This season the Knights came to Queensland having lost their  assistant coach and their coach, Andrew Marth, in consecutive weeks.  Brisbane was strong favourite on recent results, despite their disappointing performance at Adelaide last week.

The match started badly for Melbourne when Pelikan, top scorer for the team, was injured in an a clash early on with Grierson or Stefanutto as Brisbane tried to stamp their authority in the midfield. While he was receiving attention on the touchline,  Henry Fa'Arodo made his first mark on the game. His pace and ball control gave the Strikers back line trouble throughout the game, and on this first occasion, he slipped the ball past Stuey McLaren and crashed into the defender while trying to get round him.  Gustavo Biscayzacu struck the ball over the defence and into the net down low at Kearton's right hand post. 0-1 to the Knights after 8 minutes.

A couple of minutes later Steve Laybutt thundered the ball against Martin John's crossbar after a corner from Matt McKay on the left fell to him just outside the penalty area.

After 12 minutes Anthony Pelikan was replaced by Nikola Sabljak. The ball was swinging from end to end, and soon after the substitution, Fa'Arodo beat the flat back line of the Strikers' defence, collected the ball from a nice chipped pass through the middle, and scored with a sweet shot. 0-2 after 13 minutes.

Two weeks ago the Ballymore crowd had seen the best display of football put on by a Brisbane team for many a long year, and they had faith that a recovery would be forthcoming, but the moves did not work for them. The front line appeared static, and the imagination of the midfield was not there. Nevertheless, the Strikers attacked, and the Knights counter-attacked for the next half hour.  The Strikers tried a combination of long balls crosses and attempts to walk the ball through, whereas the Knights relied on the speed of Fa'Arodo and Biscavzacu through the middle, feeding them cleverly with through balls or crosses.

Shane Stefanutto combined well with John Carbone on the left and provided a lot of balls to the forwards. One of these provided Laybutt with another opportunity to shoot on goal, but it went just over. After 38 minutes the left side combination provided a cross from Stefanutto. Anthony Roche had lost Steve Horvat and Daniel Rocco and met the ball sweetly in front of goal. 1-2, and the Strikers had started playing with the confidence demonstrated against the Sharks two weeks ago.

The Strikers started the second half in good form, with a number of attacks up the left and through the middle. Fa'Arodod managed a break away attack, but put the ball over the top.  He was caught offside a couple of times. It was exciting football, and either side looked capable of winning.  After a nice in-swinging corner from the right was headed on by Grierson, McLaren just failed to make contact from two yards out. The long ball up the middle from the Knights defence found Fa'Arodo once again. Although he appeared yards off-side, play continued and Steve Laybutt came from four yards behind the attacker on the half way line to put in a tackle which prevented a shot on goal.

Following another corner from the Strikers, the ball went straight up the other end and Fa'Arodo turned down a clear chance by knocking the ball wide after a save from Jason Kearton. A shot on goal from Matt McKay went just wide and the Knights were through again, 3 on 2, and after McLaren missed his tackle they were three on one.  Kearton saved, Laybutt cleared the ball over for a corner, but not without giving Jason some concern about an own goal.

Just after an hour Josh Rose came on for John Carbone, and with his first touch collected a nice ball down the elft wing from Stefanutto, which he cut back from about 10 yards to McKay on the edge of the penalty area, but McKay's shot was just wide again. Stefanutto was booked after 65 minutes.

Then the Knights stormed through the middle again.  McLaren managed to win the ball, but it came out to Gustavo Biscayzacu who slammed a magnificent shot into the goal off the right post. 1-3 after 68 minutes.

After 77 minutes Daniel Dreger came on, Steve Laybutt moved forward into the attack, and Fernando Rech went off for the second time in two games. Laybutt did not perform as well in attack as he had in coming forward from the defence. Just three minutes later, Fa'Arodo's efforts were rewarded with another goal.  He received the ball from a free kick on the left and put it past Kearton across the face of the goal. 1-4 to the Knights after 78 minutes, and the Brisbane faithful remembered pressing appointments elsewhere. Before the kick off Chris Scuderi made his home debut for the Strikers, replacing Dave Pilic.

In the 80th minute, Gustavo Biscayzacu gave the match its crowning glory with a piece of individual mastery. On the edge of the penalty area he turned his marker one way and then the other and chipped the ball delicately and accurately over the advancing Kearton. 1-5 to the Knights.

Three minutes later Gustavo Biscayzacu was replaced. The Strikers continued to attack, Roche being caught offside, and later being denied when his touch at the near post hit a falling Martin John and was deflected out. With only a couple of minutes to go, Lapasansky was replaced by Vinko Buljabasic, who was booked one minute later. The Knights had one more attack, resulting in Daniel Vasilevski drawing another great save out of Jason Kearton.

Squads

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