R27 vs WSW | Sun 10th Apr | 5pm | Ring of Fire | Free tickets available

To be fair castelan has given all the A-league defenders a hard time this season and A-rod isnt that quick

Well come on. We're all waiting to hear how long the queue for your weiner was. I want length and girth please

Wow seems like A Rod has become the new guy to angst against when we lose. He did some good stuff as well but hey it must be his fault we are shark. Didn't think we deserved to be down by 2 we could have just as easily been up at half time if we had taken our chances.

Agree. Im pretty sure that when we win it was achieved by the whole team to therefore the same needs to be said for a loss. Singling out individuals in a team sport it ludicrous!

A-Rod is the new Tim Brown. You know what? Our form dipped dramatically when the invisible man left. Must have been doing something right...

We have conceded too many goals this year, but yesterday was a very similar pattern.... We have a period of pressure, don't take chances offered or give the ball away higher up the pitch and then concede a goal on a quick counter. That must have happened 30 times this year. 

There is a middle ground between angst and glory. I thought A-Rod was great in possession and once again showed how good he is at finding a teammate when he's under pressure, but he was exposed defensively several times. 

I hate the way on here you make a comment about one thing and people leap to wild conclusions which don't even reflect what was actually said.  Criticise one aspect of one players performance and all of a sudden you are blaming him for the whole teams performance. Say FIFA rankings are BS and all of a sudden you are excusing NZF for their shambolic mess of managing the game here.

Someone checks with Boxall please if he has a twin brother (or a sister, if she is just as tall and fast as him)

For my 2 cents worth.

I got to the game in time to hear about 50 or more WSW fans on the concourse making heaps of noise in good spirits and including their drums and other instruments. Apparently the fun police only ban Phoenix fans from bringing in instruments and rattles and other noisey type things. The only thing missing were a few flares. 

I got into the zone to find 5 others there. I think we need to change a few things around for next season. And one of them is dropping the showing up at the last minute and get there 30 mins before kick off to let the players know during their warm ups that we are present. This also helps build the atmosphere especially to the new or newer fans and gets them fired up. I think the WSW fans must have wondered wtf we are about with an empty zone till so late.

Next up, we might have lost but we showed more spine in this game than we have done at home for a very long time. Wee Mac actually had a good game for once. Hitting the side post on the inside, any other day it would have gone in and changed the whole game. Roly was unlucky with his one as well.

Thanks Siggy, you had a good game. Thanks for all your efforts over the last 8 years. I hope someone picks up the mantle and plays with as much heart and passion as you have. Even showing off the skills like a Benaldo should. Bit unlucky with your shot but it was great to see you trying. I hope your noggin is not too sore today after that dirtty bastard used an elbow on ya.

Thank too Manny. You pkayed quite well last night and linked up with Powell a fair bit. I wish you well at City, except against us, and hope you get so e decent games.

It is hard to pick up on anyone, yes, we gave the ball away but lets be honest, WSW were in the mood and played some good stuff, especially on the counter attack. Yes, they were dirty on occassion but they are pretty damn quick. That number 7 is going to be an excellent player. He was giving our defence all sorts of headaches.

We all know what we need next season and in respect to this, it is brilliant that we are actually having a next season in the first place. The crowd of 10 and a half thousand was decent enough and i hope we get that much more consistantly next season. I think Kosta and Finkler have the skills to excite and bring in fans to see them in action. I am quite hopeful that once we have a decent right back and a CB to give Durante and Fox competition, then we might be ok.

Lastly, thank you to the Zone. In this respect, despite the crap home form, the humour has been bloody brilliant. I am really going to miss it over the next 6 months. Special thanks too for helping me out when I needed it, you know who you are, the three of you. It won't be forgotten, that really meant a lot to me. If we play somewhere in the North Island, I might drive and take the banners again. I would like to see our Auckland game back in Napier so I could do the bus trip again. Or how about a game in New Plymouth or even Hamilton.

I blame Fortean for our sad home form as he went mia far too often and it became obvious he was our good luck charm, even Vicki showed up more.

Roll on next season asap.

Well as the pod finally managed to establish he does have a brother in Finland.

I blame the license extension for this. We were so cool under pressure during the FFA "war of words" time.

Now that we have a long-term future, we started behaving like the rest of HAL fans on their message boards. Sack FFA!

I am going to blame the 2nd goal on the rugby the night before, an overworked pitch creating an awkward bounce of the ball just in front of Moss.

Until WeeMac went off we were the better team for large parts of the first 70min, probably had the balance of good chances.

The RBB were excellent.  For a smallish group that sound travelled well.

Best performance in a long while.

It was an enjoyable game.

Castelen is great to watch even if he is playing for the opposition.

McGlinchey had a decent game - at last!

I thought Rodriguez was excellent in possession and in defence? Well he was no worse than the rest.

That game could easily have been a repeat of the 5-2 result if the bounce of the ball had gone the other way. But then if my aunty etc. etc.

Back to watching Palace now.

The team with the biggest horns, drums and bongos usually wins.

Sack Red Badge.

I think mostly it was Feverish, who seems to be head of the don't like A-Rod fan club.

One thing I'll say about A-Rod- has he got the same range of passes as Lia? Lia can spray those diagonal balls fairly damn accurately, and with the plan being to get  wingers in behind on a counter and a lack of others (perhaps Ridenton?) who have done this consistently, and quickly after receiving the ball could be why Lia has been still around. 

A-Rod got done a couple of times, but so did Doyle. Castelen was rampaging through the centre and right of the park(our left) and seemed likely to get through at least once. How many players would have been criticised for being chewed up by Burns last season? 

The case for him being a replacement for Riera defensively is far from made yet, but I don't think being done once by a very good player in great form negates it either.  Our defensive unit was very slow, and if he'd been working with a Boxall or defensive equivalent I don't think he'd have found things so tough.

A-Rod definitely has as good a passing range as Lia. In fact, A-Rod's long passing accuracy over the season is 74%, Lia's is 67%

Great arvo despite the result.Looking forward to next season already.COYN

Smallish group? One of the biggest traveling contingents I've ever seen at the RoF

How come they were allowed their instruments in yet if a YF member so much as farts, Red Badge are all over them?

One thing I would have liked to have seen was Krishna and Powell swap sides a bit more in the first half. Powell got goal side of Jamieson a bit but doesn't have the pace to exploit that situation, Ernie likes Krishna attacking through balls between cb and fb and he got through once but shot wide with his left, but still think it would have been worthwhile them swapping.

Not true.  If we want instruments we can have them.  Kazoos and finger cymbals are just step 1.

Each travelling fan brought along their Probation Officer

Red Badge don't want to cop a flare in the face, that's why.

Cool, do we have a trumpet player in the YF? Or euphonium, perhaps.

If we invites the Symphony Orchestra to the first game next season and got them to arrive half an hour before kick off, then we could promise fans a free concert to go with their ticket. The stadium would sound really cool too. The empire march from star Wars as the players take to the field. And if we score they could do the Star Wars theme.

This could be just the beginning....... but no Dayne Rumble half time concert unless he plugs into the main sound system this time.

Well you are clearly trying to pull meaning that I clearly wasn't referring to, as my comment was about the way sound traveled across a stadium of over 30,000 seats among a crowd of over 10 000.  so I would say about 100 out of 10,500 is a smallish group.

Looks like a really sharke boy band sitting on the right of this picture