R18 vs Newcastle | Sun 22nd Feb | 5:00pm | Bellevue Gardens Hotel

why?

I wish Boyd would just leave already so we could stop having all these wildly speculative conversations about him. It's just the same thing going round and round again.

Wingers.

and when they're off form on the bench we have more .......wingers.

Burns should be given a bollocking for that fluffed back heel. Utterly irresponsible when he shouldve just side footed it in as per the text book. He wouldve scored. And we shouldve been eating pizza for dinner.

An all seriousness though - disgraceful.

He wasn't positioned to well to get a clean hit I thought

If what has been suggested is true (ego/attitude issues) then I wont be sad to see him leave. In comparison to Brockie whom was let go, this kid has done nothing yet in a stripey or a white outfit. He is all potential at this stage and not a magic wand that would instantly fix everything.

When youre 2 feet out theres no excuse. it didnt even need a clean hit. You just pivot 63.8 or whatever the degree of 'not positioned too well' was and hit it. Not very hard to do

We had a great time yesterday. Thanks to all who sat with and around us for your great humour and your noise!!!

Its hard to know how to place this game in the context of things.

Teams have figured us out and just pack the box. That much is extremely obvious. We are creating chances, it looks bloody good to see and we are not converting so really its that last 2% that is frustrating as hell. Teams pack the box because we don't go to a plan B. We just try to walk it in and I think it resembles a lot of what Archie and Allsop did at Melbourne under Ernie (with KFC Carlos) so its quite clear how Ernie likes to play and teams defend that in kind. 

The flip side is that we have largely played rubbish teams that just park the bus. Adelaide, Victory and others wont do that and will largely look to counter at pace once we turn over ball cause they have the talent to do so. I am not so concerned with the attacking side because as Ernie said, we are creating chances by the barrel load and not converting them. Its happening to us and its the 3rd game on the trot. I bet they are going in at training though. What concerns me more is that we are being a little bit loose with possession at times and we have not been punished for it yet cause other teams had nothing that was really of any scare value. We have not punished those weaker teams (and to be fair, the last few weeks have seen a lot of draws so we have been lucky too) and now we need to turn it on against better teams. Lose the ball against the Victory and they will run Berisha, Kosta, Archie and Kalfallah at us. Now that is scary and it could end in tears. 

The problem does not lie with A-Rod. There was a problem (Lia) and it was fixed (A-Rod) so that gap has been plugged. Who we need to look at are McGlinchey, Roly and Riera. For me, those 3 players there tend to be loose with possession and passes at the wrong moment. Less of the fancy stuff making turns out of dangerous positions and the miracle ball and more play the way you are facing and making it a bit more about basics and fundamentals. Sharpen it up. There is no doubt our guys can play a good game but when we are loose with it, we will get punished. So far we have not but that's only cause of the luck of playing crap teams. 

What do we do to fix that? Well there is not the personnel sitting there cause this is our strongest team. Do you bring in Lia for a bit more defensive cover and sacrifice a McGlinchey or Roly? Those 2 are the 2 players whose form has dropped (and we are not saying they are playing rubbish, just not at the standard we know they can play at) so it would seem if there was a change, if any, it would be 1 of those 2 for Lia. Put in that about as much confidence as you like.

Quick observation: Previous games I think Riera was a bit wayward with his passes.  This game he played very well and seemed to have a second or two extra time to choose the right passing option.  Even his long passes were good calls (didn't always come off but).

Edit: And he was f*cking great in harrying attackers.

Like Jeremy Brockie?

...

McGlincheys influence is fading in recent games(playmaker).  Last year a lot of plays went thru him..less so this year and he appears indecisive.  Given he is supposedly one of our strikers I would swap him out for.um...well we dont have anyone at the moment unless Appiah goes from triallist to starting in one jump..

I don't agree with that at all. Wasn't his best game, but he's one of our only players who plays balls between the lines to Burns/Krishna. Still an integral part of our attacking line up imo.

Some other highlights from yesterday:

1. People in the ground: 8k ish

2. Two of the people in the ground hitting the crossbar at half time.

iously they wrre

if he had a head injury why did they make him walk around half a football field to the subs bench (after they decided to sub him) instead of taking him into the sheds that were right beside where he was sitting does not make a lot of sense

Aaaarrrrggggg  bloody technology

Things are still looking pretty positive for the Nix when you look at the A-League ladder and we're only three points behind second place Victory  - that surprised me actually.

http://www.a-league.com.au/ladder

League leaders Perth haven't won any of their last five games - that also makes things seem not so bad....

Absolutely no justification for doom mongering after that game. We battered them. And after falling two goals behind (one of them just bad luck) we pulled back to a draw in fairly composed fashion.

I have concerns about refereeing. I think teams know that they will get at least a half hour to kick us before the referees start to do much, and they are taking full advantage of it. Not sure much can be done, we just need to learn to live with it.

On a side note, I had a go at a bloke behind me in the zone who was biffing out homophobic rubbish ("get up you homo" etc etc). He didn't appreciate my point of view, but left anyway. I'd really like to find out who he is and pass his details on to the club. Can any one assist?

For the lols, he had a fantastic comeback when I told him that his brainless rubbish wasn't welcome in the zone. He made a wanker sign at me and said "I am ejaculating on your face." There are some underlying issues there I reckon.

You should have said: "If I wanted any come back from you, I'd scrape your throat."

Unfortunately I don't know what else the ref could've done - there were a couple he didn't call, but he handed out cards when appropriate. We had a few nasty fouls as well - Manny dived in with both feet.

I dunno. Haven't watched replay but on the day I thought a red card could have come sooner.

Most of the fouls committed against us weren't horrible - they were just recurring. Hard to give out a red for that and Kantarovski did obviously eventually get sent. Manny's was worse than any of their challenges, he was just lucky he didn't connect properly.

One that stood out for me that wasn't really commented on was Regan's shoulder charge on Krishna in the box. Thought that should've been a pen.

Dearante!!

This is The reason Naenae Nighthawks havent offered me a contract for the upcoming season. Apparently I'm too dear...

g r o a n ....

Way off topic, but I've never understood the term "homophobia". They aren't scared of homosexuality, it's not a phobia. They are just ignorant assholes.

Haha, was in Bay J but didn't see that. Most annoying for us was the teenager next to us who wouldn't shut up about the pizza all game. "I want my pizza" "give me my pizza" "if you don't score you don't get any dinner" etc was funny the first 2 or 3 times but it went on every 30 seconds for the entire match.

Plenty of that where we were too, kids just going on about pizza the whole time so we moved.

Surely even a yellow to Pepper who must have committed close to 10 fouls by hinself.

Agree re Manny. Very lucky.

Two of their midfielders had 5 and 6 fouls without picking up a card. Should be carding them for consistent fouling.

I sometimes foul myself

Hoole just kept fouling. I have no idea as to how he stayed on the pitch.