R12 vs Wanderers | Sunday 28th Dec | 7:00pm | RoF

Are Perth gonna lose all their points? are we gonna be 3rd?

Clean sheet though so no real cause for complaint

I thought O'Leary was ok for the opening bit and then 'that penalty' and the rest was largely inconsistent.

Jesus some fans are a fickle lot. We picked up 3 points that never should have been ours and seasons past we woulda got humped and we have our best home crowd of the season but there has to be something to moan about. Lia, Brockie and the ref. Funny early on in the season how A-Rod was shark then Lia was shark then A-Rod that was shark then Lia was shark then A-Rod that was shark and now it's back to Lia being shark. Can you guys make your mind up so I can fashionably scapegoat the right person and not feel uncool by not going along with the masses? (Yes double negative but deliberate for the grammar nazis) I even saw the 'Brockie is shark' call so there is some consistency...

We had some good chances to make it 2:0 and they did not scored, can't blame us for that. A win is a win. We have some good depth and not making any stupid mistakes some players are better but nobody on the field was really pants.

Next game will be hard with Burns and possible Krishna out, Boyd, Cunningham and Brockie are able to score, too. Hope this another six pointer for us and we are flying high on the ladder.

i don't get all the talk, such as "that penalty". One of the most obvious you'll ever see.

This must be an attempt at a troll, surely?

On the TV the ankle-tap on Krishna is obvious, it just happens about 2 seconds before Roy fell over.

My head hurts

Anyway, as Dewhurst and the Stuff match report both pointed out (great sources, I know) none of the WSW players nearby complained to the ref or got up in his face or anything, which is what you'd expect if they thought it wasn't a penalty.

I agree Conan. There was definitely contact, his ankle was clipped. You don't fall over from a clipped ankle at the point of the clipping contact - you fall over then that leg then hits your other leg which happens 1/2 - 1 1/2 strides later.

If his ankle was not clipped, he would not have gone down. 

If he had not gone down he was through.

Penalty.

The only two possible counter arguments are (a) there was no contact, he faked it and dived (which I don't think is the case watching the replays) or (b) that it was unintentional on the part of the defender...

I think it may well have been unintentional... but I don't think it matters. I think the contact brought him down in full flight, intentional or not, it's a penalty.

my thoughts are on the penalty is there was def contact as mentioned above - and whilst I would have been pretty annoyed if we gave away a penalty for the same thing it's hard to argue that Roy was disadvantaged from the contact.

Also for me if people are saying it's a soft pen, my counter to that is if this contact had happened anywhere else on the field it would have been a free kick so why not give it in the penalty box.

I do feel a bit for the defender - only a young bloke and it was probably not intentional but that's football!

So it's a foul whenever someone falls over as a result of someone else's contact?

With this particular incident I believe it was a foul.

Its a foul whenever you are a defender trailing an attacker and accidentally clip the attackers heals causing them to stumble and fall.  It happens quite often when a defender will try and slide across to the goal side of an attacker running wide.

I don't think there was intent but it happened. Krishna is many things but I don't think cheating is one of them. He puts in an honest shift and let's his skill and effort do his talking. He has come a long way in such a short time by being given proper game time. The Nix are now reaping the rewards as well as Krishna is.

Definate peno, but soft as.  The sort of soft as peno we used to give away fairly often.  Nice to get one back.

Careless Krishna?

Must be a Wham song in there somewhere.

Why was it soft? He tripped because he got clipped by a defender, he would had have a clear shot on goal.

As I saw it, because the ball was travelling away from goal and the angle to goal and the angle across his body to shoot would both have been fairly poor, once he got to it, with the keeper still to beat, and with the defender able to get into position to block.  It's soft because it was careless (and I would say accidental) contact in a situation where the defender was better to let play run.

For me a non-soft peno is when a defender is forced into a desperate tackle that fouls a player because he has to gamble to avoid a clear shot on goal from a good position.  I don't think this situation matched that.  Just how I saw it.

I tend to agree. These days players are taught to step in front of defenders and almost always get clipped  as the player can  not suddenly stop. I guess it is the smart thing to do ( sometimes gets a card) but there is nothing that the following player can do.

He always stayed on his feet playing  for Waitak and ACFC. Yeah right.

On another note, how about Riera's last ditch tackle in about the 93rd minute as one of the WSW strikers was about to shoot!

We scrambled very well to get bodies behind the ball. We were desperate at the back to get the win by any means. We did miss A-Rod in the middle but it's unfortunate that the cast was unable to be made for his hand in time. Wednesday is going to be very difficult if Krishna is out (is he?) but I will be happy with a draw away from home given the short turn around.

Im never gonna dance again

Fijian feet aint got no rythym

Though its easy to get a pen

I know youre not a fool...

I'M NEVER GONNA DANCE AGAIN

WANDERERS FEET HAVE GOT NO RHYTHM

THOUGH IT'S EASY TO PRETEND

I KNOW THAT I TRIPPED YOU

It seems many here have watched that penalty call a few times. What I will say is that Krishna deserved everything he gets. That pace man, to even get in front of the defender, unreal and deadly. Soft penalty but nice again he had the pace to mop up.

The penalty was not soft the contact was soft but at that leg speed it was enough of an ankle tap he could not recover. Seen as many given as as not given all over the park

Stuff is the only site talking up the penalty. Not the players, not the coaches, not the commentators, no other media is complaining about it. Which leaves Jeff Vader, Vukovich making a joke and Stuff. All the others focused on how well the Nix were doing or the win. Except the website which services the club's home city. And then they run articles complaining about attendance.

Stuff:  Kiwi referee Peter O'Leary at centre of controversy again

and Dubious penalty earns Wellington Phoenix 1-0 victory over Western Sydney Wanderers

NZHerald:  Football: Phoenix rack up another win

FFA: Wellington carve up at the Cake Tin

442: Phoenix keep Wanderers winless 

TVNZ:  Krishna gives Phoenix narrow win over Wanderers

TV3 (mixes an article about the next game with the result): Phoenix confident without Burns, Krishna

Not true that the coaches haven't been talking about the penalty. Popovic had a go about it. Apparently Jonathan Gould called it dubious which is odd. Ernie has said it was a good call.

In the post match wrap up the three Fox Sports guys all declared that Krishna had tripped over his own feet, which made me roll my eyes a bit. They didn't bother to closely analyse the slow motion replay and ignored the fact that not a single WSW player protested the decision. Possibly a slight case of sour grapes that their ACL-winning mate had lost yet another game.

Yeh, saw that now. Really Fox Sport? Guess they should play back the red cards from the Guanzhou game and ask them about that...

I often wonder whether the penalty rule needs redoing to be more a of a decision around goals scoring opportunity lost.  To often I see penalties for players taken out admittedly when they have very little chance of actually scoring as they go well away from goal..  Guess that might be too much pressure to place on ref tho...

No next match thread yet?

No, but it's all kicking off in the NGD thread!

Just like an off-season only longer.

Just a case of realignment of the karmic wheel for WSW. Nobody who saw the ACL final can deny that they were unfeasibly lucky to survive not one, not two, but three of the most clearcut penalty shouts you will ever see.

The penalties not called in that game actually ruined the game. Getting 1 big call wrong is not ideal but passable , but 3-4 ruins the whole game. WSW and their fans shouldnt be so proud of that win and I certainly wouldn't recommend that game to someone to show how far the a league has come.