R27 vs Brisbane Roar | Sun 16th April | 7:00pm | SS4

Last game of the season, can't make finals. Hope to see some young ones get more game time, honestly I don't even care about the result and Roar will have also just played on Wednesday in the ACL. Like to see Singh start and Rogerson get some time, assume Fox and Ridenton will still be injured.

Be nice to cross that 30 point buffer for the season I guess.

Defs start rogerson and singh and maybe even call up Jack-Henry Sinclair. Play watson with krishna and give barba a reast and start rogerson. The question is, do we fear well Moss and start him or do we start Italiano??

Italiano. Would be mad not to, unless we are not keeping him next year.

COYN

Well if Mossy's on his way out, I wouldn't mind him getting a farewell game for the club, even if it is away from home. Hoping to keep Mambo for next season if we don't keep Moss though. 

This one is a real zero pointer. Fire up!

We don't have to win this. Bring some young guns!

Agree we don't need to win this, would be great to finish on a winning note.  Will give me hope for the next season.

I hope we VAR

Fudge it. Lets play 11 up front. Roll the dice just incase Perth have fudgeed up and disobeyed the Celery Cap again

We need to keep our unbeaten run going.

The coaches will want to win this one to increase their chances of staying on.

sunday game hmmm . Does anyone know any bars in waihi beach hat would possibly be playing the game 

i want a win  no matter who plays....coyn

Only sand bars

Referee: Kris Griffiths-Jones 

Assistant Referee 1: Nathan MacDonald 

Assistant Referee 2: Ashley Beecham 

Fourth Official: Alex King 

Video Assistant Referee: Chris Beath 

Brisbane Roar FC squad: 1.Michael THEO (gk), 3.Luke DEVERE, 6.Avram PAPADOPOULOS, 7.Thomas KRISTENSEN, 8.Jacob PEPPER, 9.Jamie MACLAREN, 10.Brett HOLMAN, 11.Tommy OAR, 13.Jade NORTH (c), 19.Jack HINGERT, 20.Shannon BRADY, 21.Jamie YOUNG (gk), 22.Thomas BROICH, 25.Kye ROWLES, 26.Nick D'AGOSTINO, 28.Brandon BORRELLO, 29.Joe CALETTI, 50.Dane INGHAM **two to be omitted**

Ins: 1.Michael THEO (gk) (promoted), 6.Avram PAPADOPOULOS (promoted), 7.Thomas KRISTENSEN (promoted), 11.Tommy OAR (returns from injury), 22.Thomas BROICH (promoted), 25.Kye ROWLES (promoted), 50.Dane INGHAM (promoted) 

Outs: 5.Corey BROWN (not selected), 15.ARANA (hamstring - TBC), 16.Nathan KONSTANDOPOULOS (not selected), 43.Tomislav BILIC (gk) (not selected), 46.Cameron CRESTANI (not selected) 

Unavailable: 4.Daniel BOWLES (knee - season), 17.Matt MCKAY (knee - 3 weeks), 24.Connor O'TOOLE (ankle - 1-2 weeks) 

Wellington Phoenix squad: 1.Glen MOSS (gk), 4.Roly BONEVACIA, 5.Ryan LOWRY, 7.Gui FINKLER, 8.Alex RODRIGUEZ, 9.Kosta BARBAROUSES, 10.Michael MCGLINCHEY, 11.Hamish WATSON, 12.Adam PARKHOUSE, 13.Marco ROSSI, 17.Vince LIA, 19.Tom DOYLE, 20.Lewis ITALIANO (gk), 21.Roy KRISHNA, 22.Andrew DURANTE (c), 24.Logan ROGERSON, 25.Sarpreet SINGH, 30.Oliver SAIL (gk) **two to be omitted** 

Ins: 24.Logan ROGERSON (promoted), 25.Sarpreet SINGH (promoted), 30.Oliver Sail (gk) (promoted) 

Outs: 99.Shane SMELTZ (released) 

Unavailable: 6.Dylan FOX (knee - season), 15.James MCGARRY (glandular fever), 16.Louis FENTON (groin - season), 23.Matthew RIDENTON (knee - season)

http://www.a-league.com.au/matchcentre/Brisbane-Roar-FC-v-Wellington-Phoenix/854458?matchpreview#widget-match-day-tabs

New Nix tactic and formation to be tried at Brisbane....

8.6 seconds

I wish we'd fired up for a few more of the three pointers, or even one pointers. We'd still be in it this round and probably the first week of the finals as well.

Just like last season we have these collapses, runs of almost inexplicable losses, that cost us dearly.

That 3-3 draw with Glory coming back to haunt us. They'd be on 34 points and we'd be on 32 if we'd held on to win 3-1.

Yep- simply we should have beaten WSW and the Glory. Especially at home.

Our loss to the Wanderers in NP was one of those collapses I was referring too. In the context of our season it was an unmitigated disaster.

Two 1-0 losses at home, versus Sydney and Brisbane, also surprised. It should've at least been a draw in those games.

I hate this 'water under the bridge' stuff.

I'll miss Roly, he had obvious flair. However, I'm not overly upset he's moved on as he was just too hot and cold for us. Big question is why Barbarouses was so stunningly average?

Surely our failure this season though has to be down to the fact our coach quit after a collapse in results. We failed to get a 'new coach bounce' either, as we settled on two fill-ins.

At the start of the season, if someone had said we'd roll the Victory 3-0, home and away, I'd have been certain we'd have had a ripper of a season. But no.

If we'd picked up 6 points from our first 4 games instead of none, we'd be in a playoffs spot...

Those two Glory goals at the end were just too easy, weren't they? We were lucky to hold on to a draw in the end.

And I didn't think we played badly- got some bad off side calls and dominated without finding an opening or a Roly rocket or equivalent...It felt like it was going to click and we were going to really hurt some teams.

Penalty miss in the game against Adelaide, if we'd got that perhaps Ernie may not have quit...

Anyway COYN, game day lets fudge Brisbane up

Poor refereeing accounts for a couple of our disappointing results but there were plenty of times this season where we managed to look terrible all by ourselves. There were also a few occasions where we looked brilliant. Why the discrepancy? I think that part of it is tactical - our setup and style was right for the situation sometimes but not other times. Some of it was personnel - when we had Rossi on the pitch we conceded far fewer goals than when he missed games for instance. Krishna's goals were important for us but we lacked amore traditional central striker often - Smeltz was too old and Watson not really good enough. Then I think some more of it was psychological - we seemed to struggle with motivation and teamwork, and some players were maybe even actively bitching about each other (see Moss complaining that guys weren't following the coaches' instructions). I think that the problem there is partly the fault of the club owners - upper management drives an organisation's culture, and their handling of the coaching situation particularly didn't exactly signal ambition or accountability (not accepting Ernie's initial resignation).

These feed into each other - tactics are constrained by personnel available, it's hard to get motivated when results just aren't going your way, etc. But ultimately most of these are things your manager should be doing. Buckacre did alright, better than I expected, but still not good enough for the permanent role IMO. We need an outsider who can come in and look at the squad with fresh eyes and shake things up if need be. 

I said on another thread that I'm sick of our premade excuses about being a NZ-based side and not having the resources of the big boys.  That type of attitude is already accepting failure before you start. We've shown we can beat the best sides in the competition so clearly what advantages they do have don't make them unbeatable. We're not like Ingolstadt playing Bayern, or Granada playing Barca or Real. Yeah the Sydney and Melbourne teams have advantages but so what? That's life - not everyone gets dealt the same hand. Their advantages aren't insurmountable.

I want to see a winning culture. I want a squad who will fight to the end for the club and the fans. I want to see evidence that people in the club give half as much of a shark about this as the fans do. Mostly though I still want us to have a club in 4 years time and beyond.

Please dont start me on the pathetic sub level of A League refereeing. Since day 1 of Season 1, there was a pathic standard that has not improved one bit.

GameDay!! - won't be saying that for a while 8(

COYN

Football: Phoenix coaches determined to finish on high by Jason Pine

Woohoo! That's the way my Under-10's used to play on Nairnville Pk. Without coaching.

6 months of negative Aussie bashing the Nix scenarios.

IT'S MATCHDAY!!!

SIMMER DOWN FARKEN!

Oh? We're still playing?