R6 vs Perth Glory | Sun 2nd Dec | 7pm | Westpac Stadium

Really sounds like a guy who's taking the Nix seriously and can't wait for the new look A-league structure to get going. Pity the interview cut out just as he was getting into a discussion with Piney on that subject. Anyone hear it live? What did Morrison say? Better still, anyone got a link to that part of the chat?

Man when the Phoenix play well the zone is a treat.

Wouldnt have realised the crowd was so little based on the sound being pumped out.

I think the referee deserved man of the match. He made sure he was noticed throughout the game. Sadly for the wrong reasons for us but for the right reasons for A LEAGUE match officials. I don't mind a bad referee if he is bad towards both sides or a good referee whom is fair to both sides. But this cnut was so obviously biased it was beyond a joke. Either he was completely incompetent  or bought or following the A League instructions about attitudes of give nothing to the Nix. Nix players to get a yellow for anything, Perth players to get nothing for clattering Nix players.

VAR what a load of shark on all the decisions.

Those kids in aisle 23 were excellent,  rows a,b, and c in the zone were applauding them for their efforts.

Just to show you how passionate some fans can be and how biased corrupt refereeing can affect a game. There is a boy in a wheel chair- the one with the lightening bolt wheel caps, whom after Lowry got sent off, burst into tears. For the last 20 he was pretty much inconsolable despite his dad's best efforts. I have seen him before getting in behind the Nix and cheering them on. 

I felt so bad for the little fella. His passion and love for the Nix is so obvious. My nomination for fan of the year IMHO. Young fella come back k to the next game,  you inspire people to be better fans. 

https://www.radiosport.co.nz/on-demand/week-on-dem...

Check the 9.15 - 9.30 + 9.30 - 9.45 time slots

Consistency and clarity from referees. Yes. More investment in referees. Yes. 

Does Doyle come back in? As others have said Kopa was calm and really helped us retain possession.

Cheers. Here's the bit with Rob talking about HAL expansion. Makes perfect sense to me. (First couple of minutes of this segment.)

http://120.138.20.16/WeekOnDemand/radiosport/2018....

mate you having a laff right? Lia was passable for us but he didn't have the pass the mandi does nor the shot for us nor the consistency. As for Ridenton in the CB slot - WTF??

Much better, every player stepped up from last week, finally they showed that they able to play forward and create chances. It was clear that Perth would fire after the break but we still had good chance to win, low quality referee was not helping. I hope we see more of this next week.

Surely this was when we were doooomed circa 24 hours ago and prior? Not fair to compare!

I saw the kid on the way out, still upset

Thanks a bunch VAR...

And an inability to retain possession/naivety

Surely a deliberate tactic too- we didn't put on Williams and try and play in their half, we put on defenders and tried to nullify their play.

I agree Leggy. 

I think one of the worst things you can do psychologically as a coach or player is to believe that you do not have control over what is happening in a game. As soon as you start thinking that way things can get pretty shabby. 

But, I do strongly believe that the result was massively influenced by VAR, and even if the result was not influence by the VAR (who's to say?) the decisions were a disgrace

To be fair, we only had two subs available and one of those got sent off after 4 minutes. Rudan didn’t really have much choice. 

Amongst all this red card talk (and fair enough i'm still angry) no one has mentioned Kurta, does anyone know how he is, that was a pretty bad hit, imagine his brain is still rattling around.  Hope he is ok

i drove through a good thunderstorm on the foxton straights on the way to the game, the rain was so heavy 90% of people were freaking out and pulling over to the side of the road. a few people drove on could do about 60 but could not see very far ahead in the rain so was slow going.

also the otaki roundabout got me spent about an hour in traffic there, then the same at the end of the expressway so it took me just over 4 hours from home to the stadium, got to love a road trip.

They showed him on the big screen at the game on the table in the changing room up resting on his arms watching the game. Hopefully means he is all ok but will probably still be out for a week (or two) with concussion. 

I am interested to see how we go from here. This was an improved performance but I feel that the way each team lined up meant we could mark man to man and just press Perth hard, Singh dropping when we had possession helped us a bit with the ball. Other setups have meant miss matches in various areas which we have had difficulty with. Our balls out of defence were better with Kopa alongside Dura and Taylor, that certainly helped. Kopa did well.

https://twitter.com/AndrewGourdie/status/106939487...

So hopefully we will see the Match Review Panel overturn it this week so Lowry doesn't get a stand down.

Gotta love Dura's reaction, pretty accurate to how I felt

On happier note, how about Olly Sail! Really stepped up to the occassion and looked brilliant in goal and extremely comfortable coming out. Minus a current head knock this is surely one of the best shapes we've seen our keeping positions in. I extremely happy with having a brilliant shark stopper in Kurto with a confident sweeper pushing for that first spot

hopefully both the ref and the VAR operator get stood down for a few weeks as well - atrocious.

We panicked in that last 15 minutes, we don't seem at all confident trying to hold possession which is the main worry cause Perth weren't that positive but others will be.

I'm not convinced that man-marking Castro was a great idea when it weakened the centre of the park.  We still massively lacking in centre midfield.

Seemed to have good feet too?

Edit: oops that's kinda what you said.

Seemed confident passing.

Do we accept that this is actually systematically happening - the refs are "out to get" the Nix - rather than it just being two refs having a shocker on the day?

And if so, is it due to instructions/expectations from the FFA to "constructively dismiss" us from the league by preventing us winning? Or just due to cultural bias?

If the former, then the whole "metrics for licence extension" has been a rort from the beginning. If the latter, will anything change in an independent A-League?

Fenton won his battle with Ikonomidis IMO.

Looks like he's about to break out a haka. 

Personally felt like Lowry was starting to do a job on Castro, and the result likely would've been different. Could Perth still have scored? Sure, but would've been less likely. They barely had a shot on target all game until then.

Could we have controlled the last 15 mins better? Sure, but asking a tired team to control the game with 10 men is pretty tough.

Most other Nix teams would have folded after that first goal and given up a quick 2nd, so it was nice to see we didn't. The two or three runs by Roy from half way deep into their half from 85-95 mins were superb.

Just as I was about to check out for good, the Nix draw me back in for a good performance. Lets hope we back up next week.

Of course there is no huge conspiracy to intentionally rob us of points - but there is likely unconscious bias. The FFA could not organise a conspiracy. Rob brought up a good point about how we always get assigned inexperienced refs, too.

My favourite thing (aside form the goal) was the number of players willing to have a go.

Yea plenty went high or wide, but the "screamers" that people talk about season long come from players having the guts to have a go.  Keep their defence nervous and under pressure and they don't have the resources to do the same at our end like teams have been doing.

Roy was bonkers great last night.

For me, this week has shown the way. Yes, we probably passed above our average, and Perth passed well, well below theirs - but at least we tried to pass it. For the first handful of games it's reminded me of Ricki in charge of the All Whites - defence at the expense of everything else. Unlike the All Whites, the opposition we are going against aren't good enough to give that sort of respect to.

Also wonder if Singh didnt benefit from a week off,despite what some may claim think its a bit early in his career to expect him to run the show week in week out.Thought  some of the exchanges of passing particularly in the first half was some of the best we have seen for some time.

Burns played dangerous passes too. I think Singh, Burns and Krishna may be our best attacking 3. Singh looked energised, I agree. Seemed to play out through Kopa a fair bit.

Everyone in the squad has had a run now and some are hitting their straps or at least getting into 3rd gear 

How does the league go about overturning decisions? Do they review video replays of the incident?

If only there was some system of doing that during the match to get it right at the time.......... FFS

Fixed.

Personally I thought it was a great move by Rudan