New-found endeavour
There was is much to like about the entertainment value on offer in the A-League this season, particularly since the season recommenced for its second half, or Clausura (copyright – C. Foster). The table remains unusually stretched by A-League standards, but recent weeks have been erratic and results difficult to predict. A fortnight ago four of the losing sides were ahead in the possession stakes. This weekend featured contests with obvious favourites, yet the outsider in three cases – Newcastle Jets, Central Coast Mariners and Western Sydney Wanderers – pushed forward with atypical endeavour. The latter duo in particular displayed significant enterprise. There was little in the way of patient side-to-side build-up, but plenty of immediate transition attack. While goal ratios are invariably a poor measuring stick for entertainment value, it is worth noting that the goal-average since the mid-season break is 3.5 in comparison to the season average of 2.8.
Wanderers set to rebound in time for title defence?
It is slow incremental progress for the Western Sydney Wanderers, but there are positive signs just in time for their Asian Champions League defence. The physical and mental demands of their continental cup run and subsequent trip to the Club World Cup are mitigating circumstances, but the fact remains their campaign has been astonishingly bad. Only former A-League basket-case New Zealand Knights had accrued less than the Wanderers’ eight points after 15 rounds. An injury-time goal denied the Wanderers a share of the spoils at high-flying Adelaide, with a late goal proving costly for the second time within a week. The luck the Wanderers enjoyed in previous years it seems has well and truly run out. However, the backline and defensive midfield duo that did so well last year in Asia are getting game-time once again, while the pace of Nikita Rukavytsya and Romeo Castelen would trouble any unwary defence on the counter-attack. Strangely, one wouldn’t rule out the Wanderers rediscovering their confidence on the Asian stage given the opportunity it provides to refocus. On the debit side, Matthew Spiranovic is set for a third, perhaps avoidable, suspension in as many months. A yellow card conceded against Korea last month with the opponent headed towards the sideline meant a one-match absence from the Socceroos, while there was also a preventable red card at the Club World Cup. On Saturday he again got himself into an unnecessary position and was subsequently sent off. Isaias, however, did himself little credit with his involvement and subsequent pantomime jaw exercises as he waited to re-enter the field. Just occasionally, it still feels like the ghost of Jeronimo Neumann remains at United.
Mariners get wind into the sails
The position of Central Coast Mariners coach Phil Moss is said to be said to be under threat. It’s hard to know if that conjecture is realistic or simply a reflection of the increasingly fast-spinning 24-hour news cycle, fuelled in part by the voice provided by social media. Moss, however, is yet to have a full season to prove himself at the club with the league’s smallest budget. Respect then to the supposedly under-pressure Moss for fielding a side against Sydney FC with an eye to the future. The soon-to-retire John Hutchinson was benched with only two of the outfield side aged over 25. The Mariners lined up with an XI whose combined value is similar to that of their opponents’ marquee signing Marc Janko. The Mariners, of course, have a fine tradition of developing players, as Ange Postecoglou will attest, and now the likes of Anthony Caceres and Nick Fitzgerald are starting to find their feet in the A-League. With an unwavering belief in Australian football and its culture, Moss has, in many ways, a more-rounded grounding in the game than any of his A-League coaching colleagues, and even perhaps more life experience. Moss served as a journalist for a local newspaper, was a one-club coach in the State League for numerous years with all the associated challenges of semi-professional football, and served a lengthy apprenticeship as an assistant to Graham Arnold with the Mariners and even the Olyroos. Moss also, perhaps due to his grassroots background and first-hand experience of limited coverage and occasionally hostile media, is unfailing available to talk to journalists. The same, sadly, cannot be said of several other A-League coaches, who tend to take a view that is more insular and less big-picture.
Phoenix head back to the future
Free pizza if Nathan Burns scores a goal. Has there ever been a marketing campaign like it? Perhaps not in the A-League, but of course the National Soccer League could run rings around the modern incarnation for left-field colour and slightly bizarre innovations that have no place in 21st century nanny stateism. For better and for worse the NSL was ahead of its time when it came to innovation. The hits and misses were both in plentiful supply. The first national competition of any football code, it had the kind of American influenced nicknames – Marconi-Datsun Leopards stands out – which are now de rigueur. There was the confusingly titled Beach Fashions Cup, and the irony-less Quit National Soccer League. There was innovation too at club level. St George, led by idiosyncratic football missionary Frank Arok, was invariably at the forefront. Free flesh-coloured stockings for the ladies one Mother’s Day during the 1980s was a stand-out, and even free admission on another occasion. Suffice to say it didn’t work to any tangible degree. If only free langos was offered by the Hungarian matriarchs in the canteen. Middle-class suburbia didn’t know what they were missing. So too, hungry Wellingtonians missed out as top-scorer Burns endured a rare off day in front of goal. The pizza vendors must have been happy. All the free press, but none of the expense.
The good, the bad and the ugly
What a week it was for headlines, not all of them pretty. The Glory led the charge managing to combine alleged salary cap infractions with player bad behaviour. Both are rare cases. (Thankfully in the case of the latter there was no violence, drugs or urinating involved). The former will likely prove more serious, and the story may yet have more to run. The timing also coincides with the Glory’s recent mini-slump which now stretches to five matches without a win, though somehow they remain top. Last season with Perth under pressure, Kenny Lowe had just a hint of menace mixed in with his sometimes avuncular style. Last week there was a return to that manner of dealing with the media during the height of a difficult period for the suddenly embattled club. With the stiff competition offered by the looming AFL and NRL seasons, Lowe and some of his colleagues do little for the bigger picture by treating the media as adversaries.
Earlier in the week there was a confusing message for those only reading the headlines in the back pages. Sydney FC’s Seb Ryall was cleared of diving even though he clearly comically did so to most observers, or at best managed to find inadvertent contact. FFA are to be commended for seeking to stamp out “simulation”, but taking a player to trial for such an offence and then finding that player not guilty can compound the problem. Meanwhile, hidden among the tabloid headlines was the launch of the 2015 FFA Cup. This season with the preliminary rounds around the country now incorporated – including Northern Territory for the first time – well over 600 clubs fall under the competition’s umbrella. Last weekend park football contests at Lennox Head and East Lismore on the NSW north coast had the joint honour of playing in this year’s opening games. Australian football’s rapidly developing journey continues apace.
