Tom’s weekly outlook on the A-League
Following a first round stalemate with rivals Sydney FC, Melbourne Victory was looking to get some goals on the board when they made the trip to Adelaide for their Friday night blockbuster. For the Reds, Dario Vidosic was to make his debut for the club, and the Victory opted for Carlos Hernandez ahead of veteran Danny Allsopp. After Ante Covic’s stunning debut against Sydney, where he saved Brett Emerton’s first half penalty, the 36 year old Socceroo began shakily, dropping a high, uncontested ball near the goal line which he then managed to scoop up. Both teams had their chances in the fierce opening period, where Victory skipper Adrian Leijer had a good chance to open the scoring not long after picking up a yellow card. The second half began with Adelaide dominating the possession, and it soon paid off when Sergio Van Dijk pounced on Fabio’s weak pass to finesse the shot around a wrong-footed Covic. Soon after Van Dijk’s strike, Leijer got himself a second yellow card, and from there the Victory never looked like getting back in the game. The game ended 1-0, and the Victory will be hoping that an inexperienced defence and out of form forward line can get them a win against Heart in this weekend’s derby.
Perth Glory made the trek to Melbourne to face Heart on Sunday evening, where an apparently solid crowd of 7,300 turned up to see the Heart suffer their second loss of the season. I arrived at AAMI Park as a neutral, so I was hoping for goals, red cards and a good game. The opening half an hour was mostly boring to be perfectly honest, and I am not usually one to be saying that. The Heart at the beginning of the season were putting themselves out to the Melbourne public as the team who plays an attractive, goal scoring brand of football, but so far they have failed to live up to that. Shane Smeltz opened the scoring for Perth 34 minutes in with a well directed header. Soon after, Alex Terra attempted a bicycle kick from the edge of the area, and although it fizzed past the wrong side of the post, it sprung his side into action. On the stroke of half-time, Heart were awarded a penalty for shirt tugging inside the box, and David Williams calmly slotted it home to have the scores level at half-time. Unfortunately, the goal didn’t really have much of an impact on the heart after half-time and the game began to get very lacklustre again. 67 minutes in, Billy Mehmet’s pressure on Matt Thompson forced a wayward back pass towards the Heart’s own goal, and Shane Smeltz was able to clinically put home the winner for his second of the game. 2-1 was the final result, and while Perth will gain confidence out of that win, the Heart are likely to be wondering where a win will come from with the derby up next and Sydney and Adelaide after that.
With 3 other games being played on the weekend, the pick of the games was to be found at the SFS, where despite a brave showing from Sydney, Brisbane were able to flex their title-winning muscles to scrape out a 2-0 win away from home. New signing Besart Berisha opened the scoring just before half-time with a tap-in goal, before Tomas Broich completed the victory with a 25-yard goal in the second half. The Newcastle Jets made their first appearance away from home this season when they made the difficult trip to Wellington to face the Phoenix in their cake tin. Tim Brown has made a habit of opening the scoring for the Phoenix, and he didn’t disappoint when he put scored the only goal of the first half. The second half had a fair amount of action, including a Daniel free-kick to remember and 2 very questionable red cards for the Phoenix. Although his team had won the game, Wellington manger Ricki Herbert was very upset over the two red cards, especially Nicky Ward’s for being the “last man” when he committed the foul in front of at least 2 stunned teammates. The other game at the weekend was the battle of the Coast’s, which ended in a draw. Gold Coast’s James Brown has scored 2 cracking goals so far this season, and the youngster could be one to keep an eye on this season.
This weekend is the much talked about derby, where both Melbourne sides will be looking to get their first win on the board. The Victory will be without captain Adrian Leijer, but the Heart will be lacking the creativity of Fred, who will have to wait for the next derby to play his former side after he picked up a knock at the weekend. The game starts at 7.45 p.m. from Etihad Stadium, and should be a ripper.
About Tom Riordan
Tom Riordan is in his second year of a Bachelor of Journalism at Swinburne University. He loves all sports, and plays for Brunswick Cricket Club. He supports the Western Bulldogs and can be found on weekends among half a dozen others in Q38 on the top level of the MCC.
Tom… interested to hear your views on how Harry Kewell is shaping up in the ‘Big V’?
“team balance” is always a quirky cliche.
Victory are “tinkering”!
A defence might help.
Big game at Etihad this Saturday, should be a cracker. Looking forward to my first derby, the crowd should top 40k.
Was surprised to hear Hernandez may be dropped for this one. Seems he is on the outer these days.
3-1 MV.
As a Heart supporter, I was anticipating the match with considerable unease. However, the return of Bolton and Colosimo transforms the flakiest defence in the A-League, during the first two rounds. I’ll be surprised as well as disappointed if they ship three goals, Saturday night. I reckon it will be a one-goal result either way, or a draw.
Terrible Derby tonight. Bad standard and no goals to compensate. Suspect there are issues at Victory…coach seems a good bloke but cliched and he has Muscat playing/coaching through every minute next to him – and the Kewell fame factor to deal with. I suspect Mehmet and Muscat are a poor combo and that there’s a glut of icy-poles up front.
BTW…Harry seems to avoid “Yellows” that may be applied elsewhere.
Both goalies very good, though Bolton’s job was helped by some speculative long balls to an attack without “talls” to head them in! Colosimo picked ’em off.
Harry doing a Meat Loaf?