In the first round match-up between Newcastle and the Roar very late in the game Stewart McLaren's leg went and he brought down Joel Griffiths in front of a crowed Roar penalty area. Mclaren gets his second yellow - his off and out for some weeks - and Griffiths scores from the outside the box free kick. OK fair cop
So when did the rules change?
Tonight, Adam Griffiths deliberately hacked down Matt Mckay - who had only a stranded keeper to beat. Peter Green points to the spot. But no red or yellow card (which would equal a red for Griffiths who was carded in 15 minute). Surely he was the last and beaten defender?
The early game 'play on' decisions as Robbie Kruse was hacked about were outrageous.
Allowing a roughhouse team to kill off attacks with such foul play is hurting the A-League at the gate-take.
Oh and the A-League's biggest secret, or unmentionable issue, is that Mario Jardel cannot play. He hardly won a ball, he can't run and even Reddy backed himself to win a ball from him by running a good 10 metres out of his penalty area.
3 comments:
See your point, but what about Seo's card. That was just weird. It was just wrong.
Ok, Newcastle get a free kick. Seo turns around and is walking back away from the ball, facing away from the ball. Newcastle takes the free kick quickly, and (deliberately or not) kicks it straight into Seo's back, to the obvious surprise of the Korean.
Seo gets a card? This for me was actually disturbing. This is the stuff that invites pitch invasions. There was no ambiguity in what happened, at all. It's just that the ref was being a complete unmitigated turd.
Meanwhile I think Seo is possibly the best player the Roar has.
couldn`t catch the game (living overseas), but is the pressure of being second possibly getting to the roar? most of the commentary i have seen lately said the last two roar games were pretty turgid, boring affairs. isn`t that a departure from how the roar want to play football?
ps. i follow the theory that no matter how the game is played or reffed, if you can=t get on the scoreboard, you can`t complain if someone steals all the points by getting a goal completely against the run of play. footy can be a cruel, harsh game. as stevie gerard recently said `tables don`t lie`.
pss. you recommended nick hornby`s book fever pitch to me earlier. i had heard of it before, but hadn`T got around to reading it. thanks for the reminder. am getting one copy for myself and another copy (in japanese) for a mate who is a fellow arse fan.
clayton
Honourable Clayton san
The Roar need to come up with some new tricks - without Moore in defence and Zullo in attack they only dominated the midfield.
With 10 minutes to go they looked like the walking wounded - Stu, Danny and Sasa all with leg trouble.
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