The Brisbane Strikers are still walking a tightrope to the NSL finals, after going down to the 1-0 to the Wollongong Wolves in a match played, uniquely, in quarters owing to the need to schedule hydration breaks in sauna-like conditions at Perry Park
Saturday night.
The Strikers remain four points ahead of the only team that can tip them out of the NSL finals - Sydney United - but must wait anxiously for the result of United’s game against Perth Glory in Sydney today before knowing exactly what task lies ahead of them when they face the Football Kingz in New Zealand next week.
(Webmistress note: Perth defeated Syd Utd 4-2 thus the Strikers
will be in the Finals)
As is sometimes the case in football, the scoreline and result said little about the match. The home side dominated but, due to a combination of inspired goalkeeping by Wollongong’s Andrew Crews and some profligate finishing, they came away empty handed.
No Brisbane supporter could accuse the home side of a lack of endeavour or imagination last night. In debilitating temperatures that never dropped below 34 degrees celsius, they took the game to the Wolves for nigh on ninety minutes, carving out a succession of chances in each half that simply refused conversion.
The Strikers had three efforts on goal inside the first ten minutes, two from Luke Morley and one from Warren Moon. They were all saved by Crews who, in the final analysis, was probably the difference between the two sides. The fact that the home side carved out these openings so early in the match owed much to their adventurous policy of using three forwards, with regular front man Luke Morley playing wider than usual on the right, Warren Moon running through the middle and Steve Fitzsimmons on the left.
The Wolves seemed likely to get overrun early in the match, but weathered the storm for long enough to eventually start making the occasional break that kept the reshuffled Brisbane backline of Stuart McLaren, Wayne Heath and Adam Webber on their toes without seriously troubling them.
The visitors had barely threatened before the thirty-fourth minute, when Brisbane lost possession inside Wollongong’s half. The Wolves moved the ball to the right and just inside the Brisbane half. They were initially outnumbered in this area but one of their midfielders (this writer suspects Nick Sabljak) managed to hold the ball up long enough for the Wolves to sort out their runners.
The Strikers’ defenders seemed drawn like moths to a flame on the right side of the field and failed to track Stewart Van Bentum, who had made a run from a deep position to one wide on the left. Sure enough, the ball was played into space for him and he charged down the left channel before curling a ball beautifully into the path of Nigerian Chimaobi Nwaogazi who volleyed it deftly and unerringly past Scott Higgins and into the Brisbane goal.
Unusually for Perry Park, the visitors’ goal was not met by funereal silence. A travelling contingent of some 15-20 hardy Wolves supporters, who had made the trip to the sweltering north to watch their team in what was potentially their club’s last ever national league away game, shirtlessly roared their approval with surprise and delight.
The goal was well crafted and well taken, but had come against the run of play, and it would be another fifty three minutes before the Wolves would threaten again. But while Brisbane lifted their intensity after the goal they were unable to seriously trouble Crews before the half time break.
The second half, however, was another matter. When the two teams emerged from their respective players’ tunnels, the relentless probing by Peter Grierson, Louis Brain, David Pilic and Matthew McKay began anew as the Strikers attacked the southern end that has been the domain all season of their most vocal supporters. Not many real chances were created in the first fifteen minutes or so, though, with an effort over the bar by Moon being about the best they had to show for their exertions.
With time starting to become the enemy of the home side, assistant coach Luciano Trani made a substitution on the hour, bringing on Josh Rose for Morley, whose early spark had gone - the result, no doubt, of making a lot of hard yards off the ball in the trying heat. Rose was sent to the left side of attack while Fitzsimmons, who had struggled to make an impact there, was brought back to his more naturally favoured right wing.
The substitution and positional switch, coupled with the tiring Wollongong defence, should have changed the complexion of the match, but didn't.
From this point on, the home side made inroad after inroad into Wollongong’s defensive third of the field. McKay and Rose on the left, and Fitzsimmons on the right, began cutting through and around their defenders and getting some quality balls deep into the Wolves’ penalty area - but again to no avail!
The temperature might have been in the mid-thirties on the pitch, but in the Bill Waddell stand under the low roof it must have climbed into the mid forties as the Brisbane supporters frustratedly watched chance after chance go begging. Matt McKay found himself only ten metres out with the ball at his feet, but he unsuccessfully tried to chip the ball over Crews, who was again alert and up to the
task.
Then Rose found himself only two metres out from goal on the end of a Fitzsimmons cross, but skied his shot high over the bar. Royce Brownlie then headed against the bar from a corner. Somewhere amongst this mayhem, Crews managed to save a goalbound shot with his legs when he had dived the wrong way. And to make matters worse, the home side’s supporters and players found their blood boiling amid a string of truly unfathomable decisions by the match officials as the offside, handball and corner kick rules took something of a battering.
Player-coach Stuart McLaren, who was putting himself about in both defence and attack with admirable energy, must have had that uncomfortable feeling that it was just going to be "one of those nights" as Trani rang the changes from the bench. Brownlie had been brought into the fray for the tiring Moon, and with ten minutes left defender Heath was sacrificed for an out-and-out striker in Matt Hilton.
But the football gods were frowning on the home side last night, and simply would not budge. And neither, in the end, would the Wollongong Wolves. Having ridden their luck for most of the second half, they had the better of the last five minutes as they successfully indulged in a stint of ‘keep ball’ inside the Brisbane half as the home side, having given everything they had and then some, began to wilt in the unstinting heat.
In the eighty-eighth minute, Nwaogazi climbed high behind McLaren at the back post to head a deep cross from the right over Higgins’ goal in what was the Wolves’ first serious attack since they scored. Soon after, referee Eddie Lennie blew the full-time whistle and left Brisbane rueing a night of missed opportunities.
If Stuart McLaren and Luciano Trani were already suffering the occasional sleepless night over their team’s conversion rate, they will surely have nightmares this week. The Wolves managed to convert one of only two opportunities they created in the match. Had the Brisbane Strikers converted at a similar rate, they would have been celebrating a win conservatively in the region of 5-1 last night, and would have an NSL finals spot sewn up.
Instead, they might be facing a tricky trip across the ditch next weekend.
