This week, last week, whatever

Halfway to the real thing

We get an early chance to add to the silverware collection this Friday, with the inaugural Community Shield game to be played against Melbourne Knights this Friday at Knights Stadium. Of course if we win the game, who knows where the trophy will end up, but that's a better problem to have than its opposite.

I did consider asking the people that went over to Adelaide last week to bring back a social club if there was a spare one hanging about, but that would have been a stupid thing to do. The penalty for the extra baggage would have been murder.

Pie floaters, Farmers' Union Iced Coffee, and lazing by the hotel pool.

Praise be to Tiamat the Destroyer that I didn't end up in Adelaide after all. That whole Adelaide thing seemed to just pass by without much fanfare, didn't it? Yes, it's 'only' pre-season, but compared to the usually more thorough media service we've all become accustomed to, not much seemed to make it to those who didn't cross the border. For the record, we lost the first game against West Adelaide 2-1, with the last kick of the game, and lost the second game against Adelaide Blue Eagles 1-0, after being down to 10 men for a large portion of the game due to Brad Norton being sent off.

Ian Syson offered the rather biased (self-admission) observation that new attacking acquisition Andy Brennan didn't look at all out of place; another fan mentioned that Nikola Roganovic played 90 minutes against Blue Eagles; and that in he first game, we spurned quite a few chances. You can read the club's report of the trip here.

Comings and goings
Speaking of Roganovic, the word on the street is that Peter Gavalas has been confirmed as first choice keeper. As unpalatable as that may to some people out there (and in here), the point is now ti remember the following things:

• That we've shown a lot of faith in Chris Taylor to make the right calls, and so far the results suggest he's usually on the money.
• That Taylor is willing to make the change if he feels his keeper is not playing up to scratch (though opinions on whether the likely backup, Chris Maynard, is better are open to debate)
• Gavalas did win the 2013 goalkeeper if the award, and regardless of the mistakes he made, was a lot better in that year than in 2012. 

It's also my understanding that James Musa is gone, though the club has yet to make any official announcement on that matter. Does that leave us a bit thin depth wise in defence? Probably, but we'll see how the club responds to that situation as the year goes on, I think it's fair to say that we had a pretty blessed run with injuries last year, especially when team needed to be rotated through the crowded mid-season schedule.

Another signing is midfielder Jake Barker-Daish, a former Gold Coast United anbd Adelaide United player, as well as an Olyroo. Apart from still being young, I know next to nothing about this player other than what's been put out in the official press. A couple of people seemed quite enthusiastic about this signing, so I'm interested to see how he goes.