Friday, October 17, 2008

Roar 0 v Adelaide 1: 'the crowd of people turned away but I just had to look having read the book'

Same old book.

With one difference.

Mark Shield refed his last A-League game and made the clearest mistake of his career. He may blame his linesman. The Adelaide goal was offside.

Cristiano walked back from offside to head the ball in towards the Roar 6 yard box. On the replay the linesman can be seen watching Cristiano making his way back. Offside. Free kick Roar 0-0 game. But no - play on a scrappy goal. At the other end McKay gets in between Adelaide's defenders and heads beautifully over the keeper and into the net. Goal, Roar win 1-0. But no, offside. Was it? No one in the crowd could know because the replay was covered (just in case all the families with their kids their riot - or more likely not come back when they see a ref mistake go against them). The refs need to know the heat is on them if they make a mistake.

The FFA can't afford this type of error. Adelaide represents the upside and the downside of the A-League. It is great and we all celebrate their Asian giant killing. But the A-league needs the exciting teams to win - not the bores. Adelaide came to Brisbane to bore us and why would they care. Roar fans knew it was coming and only 11,100 turned up.

For the Roar, how can a club keep going when it is continually losing on the key decisions at home? Even Foxtel commentators are now making this point.

If there is any bias in a game it must favour the home team. Unfortunately, tonight you can watch the replay of the Adelaide goal and the Roar no goal, the bias - even if that is poor quality refing - favoured the away team.

To the TV viewer at full time it was all smiles and handshakes for Shields. What you didn't see or hear was that he was booed off the ground.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hehe, when do we start thinking its a lost season?

that`s eight games gone.

perhaps it was naive to think the roar would just effortlessly build on last year`s efforts.

i missed the game. work.

sounded like a typical suncorp special, except the roar put the ball in the back of the net once.

clayton

Anonymous said...

"If there is any bias in a game it must favour the home team."

No, no and no. Blaming the refs again I see. :) What about the inadequacies of the Roar? I looked at the stats having not watched the game. At least fifteen shots on goal and only one on target. Can't really blame the opposition for the performance of your own team can you?

john said...

Thanks Neil

Adelaide didn't let them get near the goal that is why the stats are like that.

The only positive thing to say about the Roar is that Adelaide didn't care about attacking, they just didn't want to lose. And they played accordingly. The Roar are not good enough to beat a team that thinks 0-0 is a great result.

The best Roar mgt and players could say to fans is that there are more games to come. That is the problem with telling your fans - to get them to turn up - you are going to win.

The Roar's hope - Miller - looks to injured.