Tuesday 25 June 2019

Another tipping point - South Melbourne 0 Kingston City 2

Two weeks ago, before the Avondale game, we were at least nominally the form team of the competition, having won four out of the previous five league games, and most of those against the either sides in the top three or against sides who were not so bad that they were in the bottom three.

Since then we have had a disappointing but nevertheless expected loss against Avondale, and whatever that was meant to be on Sunday. When these two teams played earlier in the season, Kingston hadn't yet won a game, but looked good at least for the first hour or so, and we looked good in the last half or so.

Sunday by comparison was dire from both teams. Kingston had only won one game since they'd beaten us, while we'd been up and down, our best being quite good and our worst... well there's plenty of room to talk about that, here and elsewhere.

Especially elsewhere, where people have written off the rest of this season as nothing more than an extended pre-season for 2020; and that's if we're in the NPL instead of NPL2 which, as noted by the doomsayers (currently in ascendancy over the optimists) is not exactly guaranteed.

This was a dull game from almost beginning to end. At least for the first 45 minutes, even as nothing of note happened for us, at least nothing of note had happened against us.

Then came a cheap defensive turnover, a quick forward thrust by Kingston - their first meaningful forward movement - and then a low cross (I won't deign to call it a shot) which deflected over the keeper into the back of the net. That sucked what little air was left in the stadium, and things only got worse from there.

The second half started with what was predictably a flurry of action from our end, but very little of attacking quality. By the end of the game, Kingston had added a second, subs were made, and we could've played for another two hours and not gotten close to scoring.

I've not named any players today, because we've fallen into the trap of scapegoating people, and sometimes they can take the blame, but there was so many flat performances on Sunday that it'd be wrong to single out any particular person.

Passing, movement, direction, and leadership - especially leadership - were all found wanting from our end. Had we been beaten by a team playing free flowing football, we could perhaps have rationalised it in some way.

But we lost to a team so low on confidence, playing such a simple game plan that in many ways was beneath them, and out of character too for a team that had built a reputation of playing attractive, attacking football on a limited budget, and despite the risks that entails for a team always likely to be threatened by relegation in this competition.

We were instead beaten by a team that sat back, gifted us possession while denying us space, and just waited for us to screw up. And screw up we did, enough times and bad enough that even those few chances that the visitors were able to muster were still of higher quality than anything we managed to put together.

By the end of the game there were more of those chances, too. And in the stands there was anger, and anger at the people who were getting angry, and all of sudden here we are again in another low. Every time we end up here, it seems like there's no way out. And each time, whether for an extended period or (usually) for a brief one, we manage to dig ourselves out for long enough to revive hope.

But each time that recovery takes a bit more out of everyone that's still left at the club, and it pushes more of our supporters beyond the threshold to which they can be bothered to give a stuff.

Relegation Battle (status: ongoing, stable but precarious, imminent change arriving)
Not a great week overall on the relegation front. Of course the centrepiece of that not greatness is our loss to Kingston, which arguably hurts us more than it has helped them, though of course all these things remain to be played out over eight more weeks. Dandy City continues to collect points. Port will be spewing that they weren't able to pick up a win against Gully, after leading by two goals and with a man advantage.

On the positive side - and there were positives - Pascoe Vale and Dandenong Thunder continue to rack up losses, and thus the nine point buffer between ourselves and the dreaded playoff spot remains for at least one more week.

Next week
Pascoe Vale at home on Sunday, for a ridgy-didge relegation six-pointer. Talk is that they've sacked their coach Vitale Ferrante. Not sure if that will make a difference.

If we win this game, I'm not going to come out and say that we'll be safe, but it'll do us a hell of a lot of good. If we lose, well, strap yourselves in for another stressful finish to the season.

Where's Luke's site?
It looks like Luke Radziminski's South Melbourne FC related photo-blog has disappeared off the internet. Not sure why.

Final thought
The national second division white paper has been released. Maybe we'll talk about that here next time.

9 comments:

  1. Yet Luke was at the game on Sunday taking pictures. Maybe the game depressed that much that he has decided to just can the whole thing.

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    Replies
    1. It would be the type of game that the AFL hierarchy would be having emergency meetings over the dire state of the game, and asking for a slew of rule changes.

      Delete
    2. Without having much to go on, I suspect there may have been issues with taking photos of individuals in the crowds? I'll have to catch up with him and ask.

      Delete
  2. I briefly closed my eyes about 30 minutes in and nearly fell asleep. It was one of those rock bottom type moments in the clubs history, I don’t think more than 50 people were left in the grandstand when the ref blew the full time whistle.

    Surely the brains trust have to be looking on and realising this is unnaceptable for a club of our stature? I know we were spoiled with success just a few short years ago, and it’s unrealistic to expect the championship to be won every year, but it’s reached a point now where it’s gone too far the other way.

    The only hope this club has now is the 2nd division, we won’t survive playing Avondale, Oakleigh, Kingston etc for another decade, then you just hope it will galvanise the Greek community behind our club again and heavy hitters will come on board and start pumping money in, as it stands we just exist for the sake of existing. In the space of 2 years alone we have lost about a thousand supporters who refuse to step foot in the joint for one reason or another.

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  3. Interesting time to play Paco.

    Ferrante sacked. Van't Schip, Santilli and Michael Ferrante all signed for Essendon Royals

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Has Van't Schip even been playing much lately? Either way, Paco still have enough talent to cause us issues. Hell, we have enough talent to cause ourselves issues.

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  4. Im still here, the original domain name got blocked from facebook and instagram due to multiple reports of 'offensive' content. My guess it's a certain group of unhappy staff members from a certain venue on sommer's street seeing images of flares being shared on the blog from a certain ffa cup game.

    domain name has changed to this

    https://smfcbehindthelens.blogspot.com/

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  5. Utterly insipid and pathetic performance by the team last Sunday against Kingston City. To be honest, both teams were terrible, with Kingston being less terrible than South. Horrible 90 minutes.

    My question is where was the leadership from the more senior players of the squad. Those are the type of matches where they should stand up and be counted and ensure we win.

    We have now been beaten by the cellar dweller TWICE this year. Truly cannot wait for this season to end. Two wasted years of this ongoing crap.

    ReplyDelete

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