R1 vs Perth Glory | Sunday 12th Oct | 5pm | RoF

If we had played Damien Duff, Damien Duff would've won.

Also, I would rather a malnourished 11 year old Romanian orphan was playing for us than Brockie.

Lia with a shit pass and Siggy with a shit touch. Just shit.

I agree so many depressed farts in here. Its just the first game. Save your moaning for the last game of the season

different season, same angst. lol. Never wouldve guessed in my wildest dreams tha siggy wouldve had a bad touch, or lia a crap pass or brockie doing piss all..... 

Horrifically disappointing result.

 I was very impressed with Burns. McGlinchy and Riera had good games and Roly had some patches of real class but he was a bit inconsistent. I do think Burns, Mac and Roly will work well together. 

Muscat, by his usual standard, was poor as was Doyle. Certainly noticed the positive impact of Fenton replacing Doyle. Can't recall  A Rod doing much.

If Brockie put half the effort in to running and fighting for possession that he puts in to pissing and moaning at the ref he'd be unstoppable.

I thought Perth were decent and obviously finished better than us but I thought we showed enough to give hope. 

Wish we had hung on to Stein, he would have been great with Burns, Mac and Roly.

...and running at goalkeepers to desperately tryn' steal a goal

I'm so happy, I've stopped listening to the Breeze County, now watching a doco on the Warsaw Ghetto - gezz, the Germans were shitheads.

That game was fucken shit bro

Really people are having a crack at the size of the crowd,You need to get real we have come off 2 really crap seasons and you still expect people to turn up.Mr Morrison and his pals need to realize also just saying this is the best squad wont bring the crowds in and delivering the same ole same ole that was dished up today wont do anything to bring the crowds in.

Couldnt give a shit if its the first game of the season like most i thought we would have been delivered a much better performance than thatand Perth were at longer odds than us just shows the so called experts no as much as us.

Intrigued by comments about who did well and who didnt.

One thing stood out for me:  What is the point of weemac playing in the left channel if he either cant or wont cross with his left foot? Their right back just stood on him all game allowing him the outside line but cuttng off the inside cut back and run. But he could not or did not take it once to deliver a cross. 

The full back is either a quick learner or well briefed

I reckon Weemac needs to be given freedom to roam. He is better when he is allowed to pop up on both sides of the field.

Oh dear..short ass's doing short passing got knocked off stride by big Pertha's.

Two poor mistakes lead to goals but we never really looked likely.  Burns played well even allowing for one on one(Stein would have nailed that by chipping keeper.  Brockie.well.  Ernie should have subbed him at 75th..come back Ricki  Wee mac looked lost at sea till he ended up in the middle.  Little support at times.

We looked well off A league pace despite having played Hammers, Newcastle and 2 A league teams pre season. Too many friendlies gave us less of an edge I think.

I was surprised how early on we reverted to hoof ball..but I think that opening 15 was just too much and threw the team off plan A.

Was Rodriguez even playing?

As others have said should have brought on Krishna sooner,

Once Fenton came on he seemed to push momentum back onto ourside, immediate impact - too bad we didn't do anything with it.

Burns should have had a couple.

Roly looked good, looked to get involved - but expected him to be better in one on one situations - will probably take a few games to get used to the physicality of the league.

Considering before the game we had all this hype, Durnate saying we are the team to beat, Ernie saying he would put money on us to win if he was allowed, and that we are going to gain respect on the field, the club saying its our best team ever, etc...

 Fever was in good form - enjoyed the new chants, disapointed with the crowd. Plenty of hype, big pre season, lovely day, etc.

Second win for Perth in Wellington, ever.

First time Perth has won a first round match outside of Perth, ever.

But fret not, a guy as young as Rodriguez is going to have off games, we have Cunningham to come back into the team, the new recruits need to get used to things.

Ummm..contributor to second but only by virtue of a pass he had to stretch for which he deflected.  First. Doyle got owned...

Watching from home I thought Roly was actually pretty shite tbh.

Burns looked good though some good runs and still a bit of pace. Should have finished his one on one but he opened up his right foot so Danny knew that he was going to that corner.

To be fair to Doyle it was a cracking cross from Nicholas 

It's week 1.

Agree about Brockie. Just a big girl.

Also Brockie is crap, Always has been and always will be. And unfortuanatly until we get rid  of him and get a decent striker that fits how we play then we will never make the top 6.

I'm just putting it out there, I'll stand up front and do nothing for half as much as Brockie gets paid - Ernie, if you read this take note. Could save the club some money.

Was at the match. I thought Roly struggled to impose himself through the game (wonder if he has the ability to) except a few times when he linked up with others playing wide).

By the way, our Dinner was not too bad. I did burn the onions though. 

It was Vince Lia's fault!

If the "Crowds" thread talks about anything but performance by the team, then I really don't get it. Perfect day, good pre-season, not a great crowd, but still not a bad crowd to build on nevertheless after two dire seasons. And we blew it.

A huge number of ambitious passes from midfield that were cut out by Perth.

Very loose marking in midfield. I couldn't believe how far we were standing off. What the heck happened to the pressing game? It seemed we played four pretty deep at the back, with Riera sitting quite deep as well, and three playing high. I thought Gorrin and Bonevacia were being asked to do a lot in between that. I am not sure we can afford to have three guys seagulling.  The Sunderland comments that Gorrin could drift out of games seemed to be accurate. 

But if we start making those passes we will be excitement machines, and we have some young guys that have real potential and should only get better. Even if Brockie and co fail to finish. 

Perth struck me as very tidy, physically strong, and made few errors, but burgled that off the back of Nix errors. I thought we were looking to create more, but got a little ambitious and made a lot of passing errors under more defensive pressure than we gave them.

Doyle and Lia errors. Otherwise not rock solid defensively, but I did not think the D was the train wreck that some seem to think.  But I am still struggling to see what Doyle offers over Fenton.  He needed to be a lock defensively because as far as I can see he offers less than Fenton going forward.  And one of my measures of a good squad is still one that does not have Lia on the bench.

Ernie talks a good talk. I think there is potential there, but we are going to play a lot better teams this year. 

Ernie has to earn his wages with significant improvement and results.

Pretty fair summing up

Is that what happened on your FIFA 15 game? Because it sure as shit didn't happen in tonight's game at Westpac.

Doyle made a defensive mistake but we probably wouldn't be talking about it had Nichols not made such a good cross or Sugmund or Durante had done their jobs. I thought Doyle was decent overall.

hhhhhmmm,

I still think this midfield will cause teams problems

shame we couldn't convert in 1st half

we seemed to get bullied and out-dived

early days

or

better beer, new chants, better passing .... same result

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/10598376/Same-old-story-for-Wellington-Phoenix-in-opener

Seems to show cross from right, over Durante and headed in whilst Siggy was further left..cant see how that is his fault TBH.  Hard to have got between striker and incoming ball from where he was.

He had a few good moments but for most of the first half his touches were terrible and he gave the ball away constantly. Don't really understand all the love.

Certainly he was more involved than A-Rod but far from the hype Ernie had for him.

Very disappointing after the pre-season.

Our midfield all looked too similar, didn't seem to give us much variety or width. Im hoping that Roly and Rodriguez will do a lot more and show better control than they did today. Gave it away far too easily and too often. I thought McGlinchey was pretty ordinary apart from the goal. Things only seemed to get better when we eventually allowed Albert to be the play maker again in front of the back four.

Thank heaven for Fenton coming on, we seemed to have no idea going forward until then. He must start. either at right back or right midfield.

Brockie was non existent and showed poor control or awareness.

What annoyed me was for the first half hour I seemed to be watching Moss hoofing goal kicks up to their big guys, so the ball could come straight back again - whats the point of that? I thought we had a playmaking midfield?

7,700 is the best we can muster on a perfect day - this is not good either

Perth deserve a write up too. No doubt they get written off just like us, because they are far away from Sydney and Melbourne. They had a good strong team that played good measured football.