Newcastle almost as unlucky as the Phoenix tonight. Dominated City for most of the game. They could easily have won. Anyone who thinks they will be an easy touch next week is dreaming. Also interesting to hear Bozza describe the Phoenix first half performance as ‘fantastic’.
That was actually repeated by Kosmina later on (in modest terms). We all thought the restart to the second half was the time we would score, naturally. Was not to be.
I also felt like some of the others that Hooper should have gone off a bit earlier (60 min) for Waine, because while Brisbane kept running Hooper started looking uncomfortable moving about in the humidity. Unless there was a reason to drag Sotirio off (I did not think there was a reason), Sotirio would have played well together with Waine and McCowatt. Bringing in Ball at that time might have helped the structure.
I do not think we played badly overall. We were a bit unlucky with our goal bound shots, and perhaps not ruthless enough in finishing, but the conditions would have played their role in that. Most of our games were won by a single goal difference so this is the one where we were one goal short.