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.