Lucky Melbourne. A poor performance by Melbourne in which Wellington dominated, was rescued by some very poor decision making. The most telling was the decision to only yellow card Danny Allsopp on 25 minutes, after Allsopp - victim of a tackle from behind and the foul given - strolled over and kicked the offender. The ref saw it and only provided yellow. At about the time Newcastle's season went wrong Joel Griffiths did the same in Wellington to see a red. Lucky Melbourne, the refs decision could have saved Allsopp 2 weeks and probably the finals experience. With the score 0-0, and extensive Wellington domination to come, Victory would have struggled.
Went Victory's goal came, it was from a foolish nudge in the box for a penalty. And completely against the run of play. That said, Wellington's strikeforce was poor and failed to capitalise on good crosses and provided poor crosses when average ones could have produced goals. Many shots were simply cannoned into Victory players. Wellington showed little width.
I am a fan of refs being swayed by the crowd and this clearly happened a number of times tonight. Including Wellington's Daniel being refused a penalty for a clear obstruction from Tommy P.
The late Thompson goal, freed up by Wellington pushing everyone forward, could be enough to force mistakes from Adelaide who must now win by 2 (I think how does the count back work if they win by 1?) to claim the free Asian berth.
It is the Roar's turn tomorrow and let's hope they also receive a dream ride from the ref.
2 comments:
I think melbourne gets top spot as with adelaide this season they have won twice at least (from my poor memory)
Thanks Christopher
I dined out on that info today.
And what it could have meant for a Adelaide draw or win.
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