Piss Ants looking good

grazorblade said:

Adelaide looked really strong

Roar drop herrington for the coaches son! That aside we look much improved so far

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Probably don't want to risk injury before the transfer

grazorblade said:

Adelaide looked really strong

Roar drop herrington for the coaches son! That aside we look much improved so far

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How's the nepotism?!!!!!!! Herrington literally one of our best players last year & the coach's son doesn't even have a career record on FotMob!!!

grazorblade said:

they have till january dont they?

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Yeah I'm giving valkanis the benefit of doubt. If his playing his kid over a better player it's terrible

Gets a run now.

First red for the season

As I said the other day If you get teams like Newcastle and Brisbane doing well it's gets a bit of excitement

Roar looked good

Not impressed by Adelaide, ref favoured them and they scored 2 fluke goals which will only get u so far in the season. They may win a few games like last season but I expect them to be fighting for the spoon with CCM.

melbcityguy said:

Sydney are going to smash Adelaide in the midfield geez

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Aged well

Alagich > Okon but you won’t hear it because he doesn’t play for a Melbourne or Sydney club

11,708 at Adelaide .
6218 at Brisbane.

A bit of an unexpected line up for us.

No Ruhs or Vidic to start, with Hore and Long up front, and no Herrington in CB with Bility and Valkanis in CB.

We had an arm wrestle in the midfield, and I felt like Macarthur edged the points there without us being poor. To my home ground game eyes the ref allowed a lot of Macarthur professional fouls to pass with just a free kick. It was frustrating to watch and frustrating for the players to have so many free kicks stopping us from building momentum.

The first one we did resulted in a yellow card - and it deserved a yellow card - but it wasn't the first foul that should have attracted one with a sliding take out by one of the Macarthur players just before that not considered card worthy.

Brattan whinged the entire game, making sure to include the ref, the three assistant refs, our coach, and any player near him so nobody felt left out. It was slightly balanced out by his arm giving us the penalty and the yellow card he finally got for repeated infringements.

Our defence was fairly reliable without being impenetrable. We forced most of their shots to be outside the 18 yard box, but we still gave them plenty of opportunities to take shots. Inside the box most of their shots were blocked rather than saved, which showed our commitment and support in close.

The defence improved when Herrington came on - with his timing, positioning and jumps negating what had previously been an advantage for the taller Macarthur players.

Bility got himself in the right position to defuse attacks quite a few times in the game - it looks like he has developed both physically and mentally since he started last season and he might be coming good.

I am liking Stajic in the DM position. He comes across as a genuine, solid DM which is a position we have been using stop gap measures to fill in the last couple of years,

Klein and O'Shea both did well in the midfield. They had a battle all night with the physical play of Macarthur and being a player down but they both had really good games. We would probe into the middle and back again until an opportunity opened to take it forward and both players had strong defensive sides to their game tonight.

McGarry was excellent until he went off injured. I think it was Lauton who came on for him and he did really well too. Macarthur were quite strong controlling the play a man up and distributing wide time and again - but the left hand side did particularly well to marshal the overlap.

In right fullback we had Salas. I had not realised how small he is until tonight - which is testament to his ability to perform. He had most of the attacks up his side fairly well managed - although Macarthur did get to the goal line and cross a ball with some regularity. He did not feel like a weakness to me though and I am happy to have him there.

I am not sure how Vrakas went - with him playing well away from me in the first half. I will hopefully see more of him in the next few games. Anyone able to add something on his performance tonight?

Long had difficulty with the physicality of the Macarthur back half. He did show his quality at times so I am not worried about his impact. I think he will have to adjust to the league's playing style but that should come quickly.

Down to 10 players with the send off that on the replay did not actually seem to be any foul contact (?), coach Valkanis would not let us drop deep to defend and kept calling for the team to maintain a fairly high defensive line. It felt better than our usual two banks of 4 back on the 18 yard box in terms of there being distance between Macarthur and the goal. That said, the last 15 minutes were rather uncomfortable with us simply bombing the ball forward instead of doing anything to hold the ball for at least a small amount of time before giving Macarthur another go at us from deep in their defensive half.

Overall, we were not as fluid in our attacks tonight, due to the pressure, physicality and disruptive methods of Macarthur. It almost had the feel of Popa ball - playing a more resilient and defensive team in the first half with the intention of opening up in the second half. Being a player down for so long obviously changed our game strategy with Vidic and Ruhs coming on initially for Hore and Long in an effort to stay positive in the game - but the mounting pressure from Macarthur saw Vidic subbed pretty soon for Herrington.

It did not feel like we were clueless at any point when we had a full side on - with attacking options probing Macarthur's solid defensive structure - but I have to say that Long and Hore did not really feel like they were putting direct pressure on the Macarthur goal.

A good first hit out, and fantastic to get a win under our belts to start the season off.

A huge callout to the Den tonight. Packed and sounding great.