R3 vs Sydney | Sun 23 Oct | 7:00pm | ROF

Sorry dudes

went to sleep late afternoon in the sun and had to watch the first half on TV

quite enjoyed that and

zoomed down to the game at half time

Really stuffed that up, didn't get the money to the ARs before the game

you are kidding me right? He coughed up possession so many times it was ridiculous, first half he was terrible

Absolute load of crap. I left with 15 mins to go, admittedly mainly due to being pissed, but I just KNEW nothing would happen, in our favour at least. !

Im digging up my comments from last week, it was much the same:

• ref allowed Sydney to foul from behind all the time again, should have had cards out earlier and more of them
• Lino - well, we aint getting any favours from the officials are we!
• Probably we were better than some expected against a top side, but ultimately we should have done better
• Apart from Doyle in ,  the shape was exactly the same, too narrow for most of the time. horrible looking midfield
• Roly was diabolical for much of the game. Finklers free kicks again didnt match expectations.
• Didnt score again, inadequate composure when its most needed
• Moss saved us again, defensively we are ok, but we are as dull as dishwater going forward

Should have won it but had two goals and a one on one disallowed for off side, all marginal calls to say the least.

The three teams we played are all going to be contenders and all resulted in small losses so plenty of positives, can't wait until next week!

Where are the goals going to come from?

Lots of positives out of this game in terms of our performance. Game destroyed by B team officials. That will be well documented. Lia played one of his best games for a while, with Roly adopting a more defensive role. A few things for the A League to sort with blooding new ref talent. That was not a good look tonight in that department.

But most of us walked away knowing we won't be bottom for long. There is one proviso to that - and that's not signing a top striker. May come back to burn us badly, as this A league is moving forward fast.

Offside

I thought we played very well for most of the first half.  No one (not even Lia) played badly, except Finkler perhaps.  I liked the fact we're now more willing to mix it up a bit, going long, diagonals etc.  Roly seemed much more disciplined and role focused and made a big contribution to why we were'nt threatened for much of the game.   We cant keep our shark together for 90 minutes tho...

That was a brutal ending to the game and a defeat was undeserved. Really liking Tratt, he plays with confidence and backs himself.

Very unlucky to lose that one. We were clearly the dominant team. Just remember that Sydney got out of jail tonight at the last minute. This is a side that has scored 8 in 2 games - but for the most part we had then locked down. No mean feat. 

And it was nice to finally hear someone using a drum to help with the chants. Only took 10 years.

As a wise man once said: fudge this stupid game.

As someone not in the zone, I found the constant drumming annoying and much prefer listening to the Fever singing unaccompanied but maybe that's just me.

Needs two drumsticks but hey, was Patricks firseet go and it worked ok. prefty sad when WSW were allowed all their instruments in and we have to fight for ten years to allow a single fudgeen drum. WHy are we not allowed the old fashioned wooden rattles in?

My 2  cents worth. I reckon about an 8k crowd which arrived late. we were pretty good in that first half and mediocre in the second. One perfectly good goal not allowed, one that could have been given and there was no way we were offside in that second half one on one situation. Although I saw some of our regular poor play, I actually saw a lot to be encouraged by. They played the ritht sort of game and Sydney were dirty as. how many fouls before one got carded? and how many cards? Sydney 5?, Nix 1 although, Watson should have gotten one. Just typical that the FFA see the Nix yet again as the team to try new match officials out in. Nearly every fudgeen time!

As a matter of interest re the metrics thing... the match rated 92K in Australia ... thats very good... 

To put that into perspective ... from 442 with the first column crowd sizes, and the second column last year with the third column this year.

20K === 7 games === 0
30K === 10 games == 0
40K === 35 games == 0
50K === 28 games == 2 games
60K === 30 games == 2 games
70K === 11 games == 1 game
80K === 7 games === 2 games
90K === 3 games === 2 games
100K+ = 5 games === 6 games

Total = 135 games === 15 games

Some of the comments in here are so distasteful I can see why heaps of people avoid the game threads these days..

You are right Cboz. We need Junior82 to come back and raise the standards again!

Arnold's tactics were interesting. A team that had scored 8 goals in two games sat back and invited us to come forward. The space and time our backs had was amazing. Was it respect for Roy and co?

Hoping Carney would hit us on the break should have worked but for great GK work. Hats off to you Moss. An interesting tactic giving a team like the Phoenix time on the ball to gain confidence. In the end I guess it worked but hardly a great game for Sydney fans to watch. I wonder what the Sydney papers made of it?

Great site is the following to follow ratings and crowds if interested... http://footyindustry.com/files/ffa/media/tvratings...

Again if interested you can go to the home page  http://www.footyindustry.com and compare against other codes and past years records... the site is run by a poster who goes by the handle ...""Wookie""" a mad keen AFL hard core rusted on but he keeps stats for all codes... 

do negative comments make you sad? should everyone be upbeat after another loss? 

Playing poorly and losing is one thing but playing well ( as we did)  is just unlucky. 

I thought we played some very good football at times and with a bit of luck  (you always need luck) we could have had 3 points.

For once I can't remember one player that was pants, but I will watch it again anyway.

It could be worse guys.... We could be Man Utd supporters lol.

Why do so many people complain about other people's opinions.

It's a supporters forum, some are blindly optimistic, some are optimistic but honest, some are pessimistic but honest and some are blindly pessimistic.

Shouldn't we be glad to see so many people freely giving their views especially when they differ from the norm?

For the most part even when discussion gets heated in these threads members tend to play the ball not the man which isn't common in a lot of threads.   It just bums me out when people bitch about others giving their different views, negative or not we are all here to support our Nix's.

Why can't people complain about people complaining?

Personally I'm just sick of how negative everyone is in this whole fudgeing country. Nothing is ever good enough for anyone and it's been really getting to me lately.

And the thing is the team played really well Yesterday, and have had narrow losses to three teams that are amongst the favorites for the title.

City spent $9 million on their team and we were missing 5 players but only lost by 1 goal.

Perth supposedly has the best defense in the league and are one of the favorites, and we had the whole travel thing, yet we were hardly dominated, although our team did look disinterested.

Sydney scored 8 goals in the last 2 matches, yet we dominated the game, had a goal disallowed that appeared to be legitimate, and a player called for offside who was one on one with the keeper and appeared to be onside. 

It's hardly doom and gloom, the first two games were extenuating circumstances and against top teams, yesterday we would have won by a couple any other day.

I just wish people would stop looking at the result and look at the performance objectively and with circumstances taken into account. Because in football you can lose while dominating, and you can have droughts that can turn around at any moment. I remember a few years ago we had the same sort of thing and couldn't score in a brothel, then suddenly it all clicked and we slamed 6 past the gold coast, then a few more 3 and 4 goal hauls.

Why not?

I don't care if I'm being a hypocrite. At least my complaint is constructive.

#stopthemadness

I wish to register a meta complaint!

Roly playing A-Rod's role and getting A-Rod's reviews too?

We played each game better and better. Doyle had a few in row on goal from a corner, we finally scored. I see a lot positives. Sure no reward, yet, but signs are good.

I thought the fever zone was in a good swing, I lik the drum beat, the rest of the stadium got in to help lifting the boys on the field. Especially at the end of the game there was the feeling everybody want's to push them over the line. Also nice to hear Smurf fans chanting. I enjoyed the evening, at least up to 92 minute :-)

The distasteful comments being mentioned were sexist remarks about Sarah Jones' performance yesterday, which have been removed. Think the confusion stems from you guys not being able to see the really horrid stuff that was posted.

Resume normal angsting.