A rusty Brisbane Strikers team were beaten in a penalty shoot-out by Mitchelton last night in the Strikers’ first outing in the Silver Boot pre-season competition at Luxury Paints Stadium, Richlands.

Mitchelton took the shoot-out honours 5-4 after coming from behind to earn a 1-1 draw in the regulation ninety minutes.

The match began promisingly enough for the new-look Strikers, who are playing the Silver Boot competition in the maroon and white strip the club used as its away strip in its last National Soccer League season. After weathering some early thrusts from Mitchelton, the Strikers were in front after ten minutes when Russell Woodruffe ran into the penalty area to deliver a sweet first-touch finish to a perfectly delivered square pass from the left by Brad Hicks. Woodruffe’s low, hard strike gave the Mitchelton keeper no hope and was the perfect ‘welcome back’ for the Strikers and North Star supporters who turned out to get this early glimpse of their new team.

The next thirty minutes were keenly contested, as Mitchelton predictably boosted the intensity of their efforts in the quest for an equaliser and the Strikers knuckled down to the task of repelling them and searching for some fluency on the break. That search was, however, mostly in vain as the team which has had little opportunity yet to play with each other, rather than against each other in training matches, found it heavy going.

The Strikers’ back four had plenty of questions asked of them, particularly down their right flank as Daniel Dreger and Adam Webber had their hands full dealing with the pace and trickery of Mitchelton’s Andrew Bolton (if we heard the ground announcer correctly) and a Japanese player whose name was comprehensively muffed by the same announcer (well, that’s our excuse for not being able to reproduce it, anyway).

For all Mitchelton’s pressure, though, it took them until the twenty-eighth minute to draw the first serious save out of Antony Hall in the Strikers goal when Ben Austin, after scrapping with Webber and Dreger, pounced on a loose ball in the Strikers’ penalty area to snap a low shot which Hall did well to get down to.

Shortly afterwards, the Strikers had a good opportunity when Greg Di Losa produced a nice piece of skill to flick a through ball on and put Paul Knight into the clear, but with Knight bearing down on goal the Mitchelton keeper raced out to block Knight’s shot at close range. A minute later Knight returned the favour to set Di Losa up for an opportunity inside the Mitchelton area. Di Losa, collecting Knight’s pass with his back to goal, swivelled and shot in one movement but found the Mitchelton keeper equal to the task.

Mitchelton responded a few minutes later with a raid down the right which finished with Austin heading a good cross from the right over the bar.

The game was by now developing into an entertaining end-to-end spectacle and it was during this phase that Mitchelton found their equaliser. In the forty-second minute, with Mitchelton again attacking, Webber was booked for retaliating to what appeared to be a two-footed tackle by a Mitchelton striker. Webber conceded a free kick a couple of metres outside the penalty area. The resulting dead ball was struck low and hard towards the goalmouth, where Steve Comino got good purchase on a side-footed volley to direct the ball past a stranded Hall into the corner of the Strikers’ goal.

The first half ended in stalemate, and the second half produced what could best be described as an arm wrestle with Mitchelton perhaps shading the Strikers in the contest for territory. It was the Strikers, however, who probably produced the best chance of the half. About ten minutes after the restart, substitute David Thomas (who turned in a very lively performance up front on the left), got the better of his defender to drill an angled shot that beat the Mitchelton ‘keeper and looked goal-bound, only to find a way to skirt around the far post by millimetres. The Strikers supporters were on their feet to yell their celebration of a goal, only to have their shouts truncated.

With the game deadlocked after ninety minutes, the rules of the Silver Boot competition decreed that a penalty shoot-out would take place. Mitchelton’s players looked the more assured from the penalty spot, and converted their first three penalty kicks while Dreger and Damien Waugh had theirs saved by the Mitchelton keeper, who earned the gratitude of their supporters by twice guessing the right way to good effect. Hall did manage a good save to his right to keep the Strikers in the contest, but Mitchelton eventually prevailed.

Under the Silver Boot competition rules, the penalty shoot-out win gave Mitchelton two points (their second two-point haul) while the Strikers earned one. If our understanding is correct, the Strikers must now prevail within 90 minutes over the Ipswich Knights next Tuesday night to progress to the next phase of the competition.