About time - Oakleigh Cannons 2 South Melbourne 1

Because our resident transport infrastructure reader likes to know

The trip from Sunshine to Huntingdale was quite good. Train into the city not too crowded, because the vast majority of the footy crowd would have taken earlier services than the one I was on. From the city, the Cranbourne/Pakenham lines have such frequent services you don't tend to worry about missing one train, because another will arrive soon after.

But the real bonus was my first time catching a new HCMT. Very spacious inside. Seats a bit stiff and a bit too upright, probably designed by eminent posturologists, so slouching isn't quite as easy. So many screens to look at with relevant information. Doors take a bit of getting used to. Overall, a pleasant experience. It's also easy to forget that Skyrail was even such a big deal.

Anyway...

In amid all those games where next to no one gives a stuff, here was one of those games where next to no one gives a stuff, with the addition of a few neutrals, and the host club wheeling out its entire junior program to buttress numbers. I'm not criticising Oakleigh for doing that by the way, because pretty much everyone pulls this stunt at some point during the season - and what better time than a non-Orthodox Easter Monday public holiday coinciding with school holidays to do it?

It did however accentuate the vibe that the game itself was somewhat of a sideshow. Oakleigh may as well have hired a ferris wheel, merry-go-round, and petting zoo to entertain the crowd, because there was that much distracted and idle chatter during the match that it may as well have been an exhibition game. Even Clarendon Corner, which was otherwise engaged with the match, was nevertheless reduced to the status of a rump state, not even able to scare away children and their parents from the far end of the grandstand.

Even the taunting of former players like Tyson Holmes and Matthew Foschini was more about pissing off the person in our midst who didn't want to give oxygen to the fact that there were former players of ours out there. Still, at least Oakleigh's updated logo means that Foschini no longer has to kiss a badge with a cartoon cannon shooting a soccer ball when he wants to be a smartarse towards us.

For those that did pay attention, I think the match was a bit of a fizzer. Undefeated (and more attacking than in recent memory) South coming to Jack Edwards to play an in-form Oakleigh set this up for something much better than what was actually served up. Which is not to say that it was a bad game, and not to say that it lacked action - but rather, that neither side put its best foot forward either in attack or defense. 

Just as importantly, there were no definitive answers about which team was actually the more likely to kick on from this game with an enhanced reputation. Both teams will probably make the finals, and they may well meet each other there, in which case we'll have a final answer about who was the better team out of the two; or at least the luckier.

And if you enjoyed the game and thought that it was actually rather good, that's fine too, but you're probably watching a lot more lower league stuff than I do these days.

Oakleigh had the better of the first half, and we had the better of the second. All three goals scored were in part due to soft defensive errors. Oakleigh opened the scoring when South's defenders seemed to dawdle at just the wrong time and place. South equalised when Marcus Schroen hit a shot from the edge of the box that went underneath the goalkeeper, like me trying to field in Super Mega Baseball 3. Then an unmarked Daniel Clark got hit by a rather ordinary corner at the near-post, which gave Oaks the 2-1 lead, and eventually the win.

I will say this though - there were things in the first half in the way that we played that I was concerned about. Oakleigh - by which I mean, Chris Taylor - like to play channel football, figuring out where the specific weak point is, and putting most energy into dismantling that. On Monday, especially in the first half, that weak spot was the Bermuda Triangle between right-back Ben Djiba, right-winger Andy Brennan, and defensive midfielder Lirim Elmazi. Elmazi in particular was struggling with whether to come or go, and it caused all sorts of problems on that side of the field.

But maybe I say this mostly because this was the predominant action that was right in front of me during that first half.

Second half was better from us, but how much of that was that due to Oakleigh deciding to sit back and take the chance that we wouldn't do anything of note? And yes, I get the irony of making it seem like it was possibly a smart tactical decision from the home side, when every time we've done it this year it just comes across as stupid. As it happened, we had enough of the ball, enough territory, and enough set pieces - which have been outlandishly good to us so far in 2021 - that only our inability to put in a decent ball for 90 minutes prevented us from creating meaningful chances to score.

Oddly enough however, I didn't find myself too disheartened with the loss. Bad crossing, wonky defending, and some questionable substitutions and team selections - what exactly are the circumstances where Jai Ingham is fit enough to start one week, and not the next? - only served to demonstrate to me that we're within the championship discussion. That's not the same thing as saying the competition is of a particularly high standard; only that I see us being more than competitive for the rest of the season, bar some streak of outrageous fortune.

I mean, it could happen, but those of you playing the "eight more points until we definitively avoid relegation in 2022" game, should probably enjoy it while you can.

Next game

Altona Magic at Paisley Park on Anzac Day. 

Look, women's matches! Two of them!

The new era of senior women's soccer continued last Saturday our in the 'burbs, with South taking on Alamein. I watched this on the stream, and I have to say that the best thing about the game was the commentator. Even if she was a bit new, and struggling a little with the names, she was also unafraid to be critical of elements of the game - namely how much time the ball spent out of play.

As for the match itself, it appears we are all going to have a be a little bit patient with the new regime. Anyone looking for the overloaded glory hunting teams of recent years will be disappointed. I don't know if we're actually going to go with our own youth, or just more young players from wherever we find them, bit clearly there's going to be an adjustment in expectations.

Among the players who have remained, some would have been fringe players in the past, carried by the stars. Now they've got to lead, and if the results and quality of play aren't where they need to be yet, that's just the way it is. Playing short, simple balls, instead of resorting to kick and chase will be a good start. Getting more than forward into position will be a nice addition. 

Which is not to say that we were completely outplayed by Alamein, and in the end, it was only the one goal that separated the two teams. But the home side had that extra bit of polish across the board, and you could hardly begrudge them their win.

Much better - though there was no stream to verify the totality of the effort - was the team's 5-1 cup win on Tuesday against a lower league Moreland Zebras side that apparently featured former South players Alex Cheal, Laura Spiranovic, Jess Au, and Lisa De Vanna. Maybe experienced players carrying a team isn't always what it's cracked up to be.

Final thought

The venue switch for this match means that our scheduled 2021/2022 six pointer against Oakleigh won't happen until later in the season. Not that anyone cares about this, of course.

Boking Accident - South Melbourne 1 Green Gully 1

Dear readers of South of the Border,  I have been given a most precious gift; the gift of an epiphany. I wasn't looking for it, I didn't realise that I needed or wanted this gift, but I was chosen to receive it.

Since South of the Border was launched in December 2007, I believed I had the right to voice my own opinions, whether they were right or wrong, fair on unfair, and untethered to popular or official opinion. 

I now understand that this was a dangerous illusion, a devastatingly heretical one. I now understand that not only were my opinions wrong, but so too was my belief in the right to have my own opinions. I cannot express how much I was crushed by the sudden onset of the reality of my long-running egoism! All the lost years spent agonising about what to think and how to think it and how to express those thoughts, when all I needed to do was to look at the status quo, and just sit back and bask in its perpetual and permanent acceptability; no, its divine infallibility, for whatever happens must by design surely be good and right. 

As recently as last week I was like many of you, criticising people at our club who make decisions, focusing my stern judgments on those who have more than nominal responsibility for where the team has found itself this season. Ladies and gentlemen, I now know that it was wrong to feel this way. I don't blame the coach anymore. It is clearly the players' fault that we are where we are. They're the ones not following orders, or following orders too hard - I'm not sure which anymore. They're the ones who need to weather Spanish insults screamed at them for 90 minutes, and being rotated in and out of the match day squad for reasons they cannot comprehend. They need to play with less flair and intent! They need to comprehend better! It's for their own good! It's for our collective good!

But hold on - what if "blame" is the wrong word, too? What if this has been the plan all along? Maybe apportioning blame to anyone is not good enough or supportive enough of the team either? Forgive me; I'm new at this no longer thinking for myself caper. So instead of apportioning blame, let's start apportioning credit. I credit the coach for where we are now. I pay homage to the quality of his management skills, which see a squad capable of more, achieve less. Credit also has to go to the board. It takes a lot of guts to stand up to so-called reality. It's imperative that we South Melbourne supporters also reject this false reality, and substitute it for the one that management sees. My new and enduring hope is that one day those of us left in the crowd who don't agree with the current trajectory of the team, can squeegee their collective third eye and come to the same conclusion. Only then can we become not the bitter few defenders of a rump state, but rather, the discerning few.

This revelation means that I now understand that the last two months of football have been incredibly adequate. Maybe even more than adequate! Why demand excellence, even relative excellence, when you can accept the sweet comfort of midtable, or wherever we end up? Higher, lower, what difference does it make? What sweet release to now see that we are not in competition with other teams, but only with ourselves and our own expectations; even then, the only worthwhile struggle is to stop struggling. to stop having expectations, so that we can finally and genuinely let go of the infatuation of competing. 

You win this year or the next, or you lose this year or the next, what does it matter? And I don't mean what does it matter in the context of no one caring about this club or this league. I mean what does it matter at all what we do, if concerning ourselves with whether it matters only causes more psychological and spiritual torment? I've been going to games and seeing the anguish on our supporters' faces, and not seeing it for what it is; the agony of trying. So why try? Why not just be? Just go out there and do anything, and let the chips fall where they may. Give up trying to understand, give up the idea that South Melbourne Hellas should be doing better. Acknowledge the genius of the strategy, and acknowledge its genius wherever it leads us. 

Ideas of stature and pedigree? Let them go. Consistency? Throw it to the wind. Fluency? Ask yourself why we should make the effort. Come to the realisation that forwards and backwards are actually the same thing. Learn to love short corners. 

Next game

At St Albans away on Sunday. Now I know many of you aren't quite with me yet on the path to "who gives a stuff" enlightenment so I'll phrase this next section in a way that will hopefully gently start you on your journey. St Albans are struggling, but I don't us expect to roll over them; I expect us to walk alongside them, being neither better nor worse. Why make the opposition feel bad about themselves? We have a great chance to make them feel better about themselves - not so much better because they've managed to beat us, but hopefully at least enough to give them the taste of being able to know what it's like to match it with the great South Melbourne Hellas. And you also wouldn't want to win, because you only really need 26-30 points to definitely (probably) avoid relegation, so anything more than that would just be a waste of effort, and of course win bonuses. So, no showboating please, and absolutely no goals unless we need to equalise to keep our draw tally going. 

Women's news

In all seriousness, despite playing against an obviously inferior opponent, I was pleased with what I saw on the live stream on Saturday by our senior women against Alamein. Granted, Alamein didn't push as high up the field as say, the Bergers did the other week. But I think we moved the ball around well in midfield, and seemed more in control of the tempo of the match, even in those moments were Alamein had a decent spell. Big game at home against Bulleen on Saturday though, to show how far this team has really come.

Final thought

At least the last half hour of the game was kinda entertaining, if you're into that sort of thing. But if you are into that kind of thing, I must warn you, because it's a hell of a drug, and you're going to be chasing that high for the rest of your days if you're not careful.

From sucker punch to ordinary sucking - South Melbourne 0 Oakleigh Cannons 1

Apologies for this one coming out a little late, and for it being relatively short, and thus almost a placeholder piece than anything else. As you'll see later, I've been sucked in to some other writing duties, plus there's all the the other writing things that I would like to finish, etc.

Look, if there's one certain thing about South Melbourne in 2018 it's that if we fall behind, we're not going to win the game, and we'll be lucky to draw. We're not the kind of team that can break down tight defences which are happy to sit on a lead - at least not until Iqi Jawadi comes back from his injury, and even then - and we're going to rely a lot on getting the first goal. Of course getting the first goal is always the main er, goal, if you like, and if we do manage that and we can coax our opponents to come out and try take us on, I think we might be able to do something in a game.

Last Saturday though, well, 40 minutes of dominance in general play was worth diddly squat when Oakleigh opened the scoring, and speaking of doing diddly squat, thank you very much Andy Brennan for that goal, like a dagger in the heart. Anyway, after that goal we did our other customary thing, which is fall to pieces mentally or near enough to it, and Oakleigh looked like if not world beaters, which they aren't, than at least they resembled something competent. We recouped a little bit, but the taking off Clarendon Corner's new favourite (though I'm still holding off for now) Oliver Minatel for Tim Mala and a strange reshuffle kinda screwed everything up.

Mala gave away a penalty, but it was probably too late by then anyway, and Nikola Roganovic saved it anyway. Not that we would have scored anyway no matter how much injury time was played, but how the referee came to the conclusion that only three minutes of injury time was to be played was anyone's guess. Still that doesn't compare to his decision to do absolutely nothing to dissuade Oakleigh from making stupid tackles early on, which lead to them committing behind the scenes transgressions which also went unpunished.

Anyway, as well as our midfield still being a mess, the forward structure was also wonky. Ndumba Makeche was being played as a lone striker, which is fine, that's the style of the time, but he is not a Milos Lujic type who can hold up the ball against two or three defenders. Makeche is clearly the type of forward who needs to be fed balls to run onto, especially in situations where he can quickly take a shot - something which he seems very keen to do.

The loss was a missed opportunity get away from Northcote and Hume, who both lost on the weekend; we're still only two points ahead of both of them. Conversely, Kingston seem to have found a bit of form, and their win against Port over the weekend saw them go above us.

Next game
Pascoe Vale at home on Sunday, at the unruly time of 7:00PM. That timeslot has been chosen so as to link up better with that night's World Cup broadcast, which kicks off at 10:00PM, and which it is hoped you will watch in the social club. I won't be sticking around for that because public transport dies in the arse after midnight, but at least I might be able to also make the Collingwood-Carlton game beforehand. Probably not the club's intention, but when life gives you lemons, well, you know the rest.

Women's team
Before the men's game, the women took on Alamein. I was still on a tram somewhere along Clarendon Street when the rain came bucketing down and the game had started, and thus missed the first goal which came about 50 seconds into the game courtesy of Melina Ayers. I did get to the ground in time to see Alamein equalise. The game got a bit messy after that, though I wasn't as disappointed by the standard in the first half as some people may have been. Alamein probably should have been in front, but they skied one over the bar from six yards out. The second half was harder to watch, but Ayers and Lisa De Vanna got goals to put us up 3-1 late on, and even a late Alamein goal wasn't going to be too much of an issue to hold out against. The result sees us sit in second, four points behind ladder leaders Calder. The women's next game is against bottom of the table Southern United at Lakeside on Saturday afternoon.

Some very brief thoughts on the quality of the food in the social club
I know that it's not a like-for-like situation, but the food served to those who had booked tables for the Socceroos was light years ahead of the usual canteen fare. Not that it was uniformly superb (except for the roast goat, which was outstanding), but it was a clear step up from the standard menu items. Even the very basic home style food offered on Thursday's social club nights - $20 all you can eat - is better than what you get on a match day, though to be fair, last Thursday I hung around long enough to sample the rather good spit roasted pig cooked by board member Andrew Mesorouni for the non-Muslim and carnivorous members of the squad..

And yes, the club will be showing the Australia-Denmark game on Thursday; not sure about any spit roasts for this week though, but you never know.

Heavy Sleeper 2018
Yes, despite much reluctance on my part, the Heavy Sleeper World Cup diary is going around for another tournament. Check out the Shoot Farken site and its affiliate social media accounts for updates.

Vale Fred Villiers
We forgot to talk about this last week. Sad news, of course, though Fred had a good innings. Later in life Fred's mind had started to wander, including on the one occasion I got to meet him back in 2009. But he still got some crucial points across, about how if we want to get soccer stuff out into the public sphere, we have to be prepared to do it ourselves and we have to be prepared to make the arguments for soccer, because there was and is a status quo which makes assumptions about how little people care about soccer, or how difficult it is to leverage, when half the battle is in overcoming the assumptions of the gatekeepers of our sporting culture.

Around the grounds
Too cold, stayed home and watched Batman and the footy.

Final thought
North Preston and North Heidelberg, oh you wacky kids.