R27 v Sydney | Sunday 26th April | 5:00pm

I also am sick of our home form.

We've not been good enough on a few days though!  And it hurts.

I don't think for one moment we were the better of the two ( over 90 mins)  They just played the smarter football. Certainly more composed and when they broke always looked like scoring. They have a lot more pacy players all over the park, and that showed.

I'm not happy at all with fourth and thought at the start of the season we had a squad capable of finishing in the top 3.  If Perth had not have been caught out that's fifth, not even our best ever finish.

Another deflating end to a promising season...  

BUT

I'm glad we are playing away games in the play-offs now as our away form as been the best thing about our season.  C'mon You Nix!!!

The Ibini goal was soft and inside the 15 minutes so very disappointing. I'm wondering why we played with our keeper doing the long ball kick rather than the build up passing from the backs like we have done. My missus reckons it was because Italliano was there instead of Moss but I thought it was of a push to put the pressure on and avoid Sydneys quick forwards. Thoughts?

Fact..this team will not make history this season.  And they don't deserve to really.

Folly of short passing is when it breaks down(as it does) there is hectares of room out wide and we are torn apart for speed of movement.

Smeltzy, what's the score? Wait what...

We have to win at home first...

Sounds like you're blaming mistaken tactics, i.e. Ernie. But clearly the issue is in the players' heads, not what they're being told to do. Nothing but lack of self-confidence can explain how Burns and Bonevacia have gotten the yips, and not only with penalty taking.

So Ernie gets us to 4th, as good as Ricki's best effort. Does he have the team psychology chops to persuade these players that that simply isn't good enough?

What I don't understand is how we are so bad at penalties, apparently Ernie does penalty practice after every training session because he lost on pens in the finals once.Someone was saying, and I don't know if it's true or not, that we have missed more penalties than the rest of the league put together this season.

Burns and Bonevacia have been identified as our main threats and have been marked accordingly. This is where other players need to step up and take advantage of the extra space.

I wonder if we are shifting who takes them around too much? Each player has only missed 1 penalty. Maybe we should just be confident and let them take a 2nd if they miss their first.

Seen trying to get into the stadium before the 4 OClock openning. Had a mate with him and was talking to a stoned supporter who, One could smell the dope on from 20 feet away. Not the big fella in the pic, I cut the stone head out of it.

Wtf

And sit at an empty stadium?

WTF?

Setting aside the result I enjoyed the game, plenty of good football played by both teams. Pleased with the second half - that's the intensity we need for next week.

Aside from Boxall, who I thought was very good, our back 6 are just too slow. We have to target a quicker FB and DM in the off season or we'll continue to come up short when facing real pace.

I'd far rather play Melbourne City than the Roar but we have to sort out our slow starts and THE PENALTIES.

Roll on next Sunday - with a big croud and 90 minutes of play-off intensity - and closing down Mooy - we'll get the job done.

The annoying thing for me is that I feel like we arent as mentally strong as we should be. Missing pens like and constantly conceeding early goals reeks of the occasion rgetting to the team. Dura and Ernie are culpable for that 

Manny had a better second half but on a few occasions in the first he legitimitely looked like he couldn't be arsed to get back and stop a cross. Its reallt strange because im not used to seeing that apathy from Manny. Hes not even getting fired up anymore.

Is that the All Whites coach?

Very happy to be in the playoffs after the last couple of seasons.But there needs to be some serious questions asked about what has been a bad 2nd half of the season.Going into the Asian cup break we were looking good since then it has been very patchy and Burns hasnt really had much of an influence apart from a couple of games.Frankly getting sick of some of the Warriors type hype that we hear at times until our team develops that hard nosed approach that the Breakers have done we wont be able to offer a serious challenge.

Yet again we havnt delivered on the field dont want to hear any crap from the club bitching about attendances.

And can we please stop this Carlsberg Man Of The Match s**t. Mcglinchey????? FFS and announced at 78mins while we're losing 2-1.....

This is disappointing, nobody should be satisfied with the results of the last month. We don't have a bad team, but not scoring pens giving away soft goals is just not grand final quality. Started all with winnable draws at the Rec Hutt. Highly rated player like Burns not scoring for weeks is not helping either.

I still OK with the season, it was 100% more fun than the two before. The boys showed a lot of passion in the last two games which is good. Now we need just a bit of luck in the next games. We still can win that thing!

Glad you enjoyed it. You going to tell your grand kids about that time we were on top of the table?

Sydney deserved the win, sad to say.

Nothing "bizarre" about that comment.  Tonight was the night to show that the last few home games were not reflective of the quality of the team, that we are not pretenders for the final.  Tonight was the night to show that, and stick one up the Aussies.

Absolutely agree, we were not good enough. 

I don't think Sidney were that much better though which is probably the frustrating bit .

I nvest a bit emotionally in my team each week, perhaps I was just that little bit more invested in this game than the last 250, which is why it hurts more.

I'm also wanting to see the fan base grow and there was a good turn out tonight, discounts aside, those casual supporters will come back if we win.

we're not as good as Sydney. This is not news. It sucks we couldn't win but it was unlikely to happen. We are not the 2nd best team. I think fourth is a good reflection.

yes, in the photo it is our National coach, mr Hudson.

Is there a ticktec in Upper Hutt any more or in the Hutt? And is it a 7pm ko or a 5pm ko?

Well said Leggy!

This had to be the closest table ever for the A League with 5 teams all within points of each other. Great croud tonight, the two I brought along thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Don was at his usual best which makes it a lot of fun, thanks too to Fortean for allowing my two guests in to where you and the mrs usually are. I think the zone was packed and very noisey for most of the game.

We rarely make space..tighter than gnats RS.  goal kicks we congregate in centre circle and yes it does go wide but invariably  through 4 players and as many changes of direction.  We had more flow in early season.

7pm kickoff LG.  No ticketek in Lower Hutt.  Closest would be Wellington Railway Station branch. 

we coulda been if we had sustained our momentum at the start of the second half or pinched another goal. Or converted the pen. It only takes a second for us to go from chumps to a million dollars.

But yeh, they got an advantage and then played smarter. I think we are fairly pacy (see sig) but for some reason we were only operating wide on one wing tonight for the first half, and Manny is NOT so pacy. 

Also Faty is damn good. Not sure who is better than him in the league.

Curse you Spark, more dble posts.

That is a big FU- 7pm on a Sunday night. That could take out a lot of families and travelling support from further up the island. 

dble post

Yip, it all revolves around Fox Sports....

my mistake

certainly if you look at our form after the Asian cup. We've lacked drive, desire and impetus, which is disappointing.

Also- if Perth got caught because of an informer, we should be offering sanctuary to any informers from Melbourne or Sydney!

Ok, we may drop a k or two through a later kick-off, but  it may also be more convenient for those with Sunday afternoon commitments.  Important now to get behind the event and spread the word.  I also think the pricing is reasonable (Netball cost $30 last night for a bog-standard game - so seems about right).

Let's get good positive vibes going on this. There was enough in that second half to give us hope that we're not done yet.