Another sunny day - Eastern Lions 0 South Melbourne 3

Turning up to Gardiners Creek Reserve for the first time since I went to watch Eastern Lions vs Mornington eleven years ago (also a Football Chaos match!), I was expecting not quite the worst, but rather, who knows what. It'd been a hell of a week. It'd been a hell of an eight weeks. Reports from both sides of the ledger last Saturday was that Eastern Lions had three or four of their better players out. Goodness knows why. When we were drawn against each other, they were winless. After a coaching change, they'd picked up a couple of wins. For us, there was no Nahuel Bonada nor Max Mikkola, apparently due to injuries, though I did spot the latter among the onlookers.

You don't often see the club's official Facebook
 account reply directly to our supporters.

Also among the onlookers was Oakleigh Cannons general manager and occasional unlicenced doctor, Aki Ionnas. There was also one George Katsakis, which given the rumours going around about him being a possible candidate for our vacant senior men's coaching job, got tongues wagging. Nevertheless, Occam's Razor suggests that his primary reason for being there was in his capacity as Bentleigh Greens coach, as the Greens were due to play the winner of Saturday's match after having beaten George Cross 3-2 earlier in the week. The secondary reason would have been that Katsakis gets to a lot of games anyway, albeit probably not so many outside the Greek community club scene.

Still, people like to talk, and there's much to talk about. For what it's worth, all that I was able to glean from the more vaguely reputable people I spoke to was that no decision had been made at the time; and, as it turns out, no decision has been made publicly by the time I posted this blog up. I'd also heard from someone else that Goran Lozanovski had been asked to indicate his interest, but he had declined. Harder to verify that in any way, but it's probably legit. 

As for the match itself, there really isn't much that can be said. We did not look utterly transformed, in the sense that we had rediscovered some old mojo. We were, nevertheless, the better team throughout the game, and at least looked up for the battle from the start. George Mells, Esteban Quintas' chief whipping boy this season, got a start and made his mark. An early goal settled whatever nerves there might have been, for me for no other reason than it looked like a normal goal - a turnover, a couple of nice passes, and a finish from the six yard box. Hardly revelatory stuff, unless you've been South Melbourne in 2025, where even by our set piece dependant standards of the past few seasons, we'd barely scored any goals from alternative outlets this year. 

Then the second goal, a square ball across the backline to no one, not centre back nor goalkeeper, and Rob Harding bagged his second after the goalkeeper's initial save of an earlier shot. Lions had put some balls into our box, but there was nothing particularly threatening about most of them. The second half was messier. harder to watch all round. An Andy Brennan shot hit the crossbar, came down, was cleared away and was then called a goal by the linesman. I'm not sure said linesman was in the best position to make that call, and neither the Eastern Lions bench, who were in even worse position, let alone the South fans behind that goal, seemed convinced that it had crossed the line. So it goes. Subs were made, and I assume we came through largely unscathed injury wise. Pleasant day out, but nothing to get too excited about, even if the ball was on the ground a lot more than we've become accustomed to.

Next game
Away to Green Gully on Friday night. It's going to be wet, Leigh and Tyson are still going to be coaching, and there's going to be fifteen million other games on at the same time. I just hope that Gully still do match programs.

How the other half live / If you know your history
While we're on the subject. I don't normally take much of an interest in matters A-League, but I do occasionally take a perverse interest in some of the off-field stuff that goes on there when it intrudes on my social media feeds. Recently there's been some stuff about Football Australia and Melbourne Victory banning certain individuals from the Melbourne Victory's North Terrace supporter group, which of course elicited another infamous supporter group press release missive. So far, no normal.

But while rubbernecking through the responses to a recent missive on the subject on the NT's Facebook page, I did come across this curious response

After the initial situation of getting my hackles all ruffled had fizzled out, the comments struck me as missing the point. Northern Terrace, the biggest organised supporter group in Australian soccer history, being compared to the remnants (with the recent exception of Preston) of suburban soccer supporter groups on life support, is just wild. And Thunder and its fans not being punished? Thunder was mauled by Football Federation Victoria following the 2012 grand final which included the infamous rocket flare.

But more to the point - when was the last time a flare was actually lit at a South game by South fans? Not that I've been keeping a tally of such things on a spreadsheet anywhere (I only recently made a spreadsheet to keep tabs on my work from days and expenses for tax purposes), but the last flare lit by someone who was nominally a South fan that I can remember would have been ten years ago, when we played Heidelberg at Lakeside. That night also included an attempt by persons affiliated with the flare lighters (or possibly even just the same person) attempting to steal a Heidelberg banner. The result of those shenanigans? That person, and perhaps a few others, were banned by South Melbourne, A year later, the main person banned from that 2015 game turned up at Lakeside supporting Victory's NPL team against us, and being subsequently banned by Football Victoria for his part in the violence perpetrated by that group of Victory fans that attacked South supporters. On December 17th, 2022, said fan became Bucket Man. 

I suppose the main point of the condensed history above here is that, well, actually, South Melbourne has banned people for pyro and related shenanigans. Does banning people from attending your games stop them from doing stupid shit? There's never any guarantees on that. But can a club, by enforcement of said bans, at least make it so that when those people are moved on, they are at least no longer your problem? Definitely, at least to some degree. Naturally it's much easier to do this at a club which has not many fans to begin with than it is for one with over ten thousand most weeks. But if you're going to turn this into an old soccer/new football comparison (yawn), we should at least get the details right.

But again, to be clear - people like this have been a problem in Australian soccer for decades. They've been at turns banned and appeased, castigated and then used in promotional campaigns. They can spring up  anywhere, any time (good chance someone will pop up at South vs Preston that we don't and will never see again after that), and it's usually a matter of one of two outcomes - either they quickly get bored of whatever club or scene they've attached themselves to, or they hang around long enough to eventually force someone's hand because one of them has crossed some critical line of law or good taste. Then it's up to not just governing bodies, or the clubs to deal with the issue, but also the fans nearest to them. It really has to be all three, and from the latter, that means a wholesale form of social ostracism. Unfortunately, history suggests that last aspect is the hardest to achieve, because there's usually enough of a rump within the relevant supporter base which tolerates or sympathises enough with the transgressive supporters, that the combined efforts of everyone else to get rid of these people just can't take hold.

Final thought
Being driven home from the game last week, and I've got my glasses off and just doomscrolling on my phone, when my driver, who has stopped at the lights at some intersection just outside the southern part of the CBD says "what the fuck", and I look up and there's some chick in hot pants on the pedestrian crossing juggling three balls. It takes all kinds, I guess.

Lens Flare - Eastern Lions 0 South Melbourne 4

More apologies for lateness and brevity.

I did not attend this game, as I decided to go to a mate's place to watch it instead. That would have worked well, were it not for multiple protests in the city curbing public transport - and me being an idiot - for not being able to get to my mate's place in time. That itself would not have been an issue if the pause button on the app actually worked. Is there even a pause button? The trick I think is to actually watch matches through the "match centre" portion of the site, which inevitably boots you out of the app to your browser. 

So I missed the first ten minutes or so thanks to public transport delays, being required to be buzzed in and taken up a lift, and then not being a pause button. Since Eastern Lions, despite their struggles in 2022, had at least had a habit of scoring first and/or early, I was concerned that we might already be 1-0 down, and playing even more catch up to Oakleigh. Oakleigh ha already dispatched Dandenong City 5-0 the night before, so not only was there the matter of Oaks having taken the lead at the top of the table, but also a matter of goal difference.

As it was, we were actually already 1-0 up, and going to the replay function showed that it was pure training ground stuff to take that lead. Eastern Lions have barely been competitive this season, and that trend continued in this match. In 2021's abandoned season, they won four games from eighteen, three draws, and tended to always look plucky. This season they've had one win and three draws, and have probably been lucky to get as much as that.

So the disappointing aspect from this game, if one is to be disappointed, was that we didn't look that threatening from general play. A corner goal, a penalty, a throw in goal, and an open play effort after a dreadful backpass was picked on by Harrison Sawyer. Players that came on as a subs, and who could've had some downhill skiing fun, didn't really take that opportunity. No matter - we got through the game with the expected win, the expected margin, and I assume not too many injuries or unnecessary yellow cards.

At home, even if not my own home, the experience was augmented by a potent negroni, and in this case by lens flare. The great thing about livestreaming at this level, is all the variances in quality. The wrong cameraman, the wrong commentator, the wrong weather, the wrong lighting, teams that can't work out a uniform clash. One thing that's harder to deal with is that you want the crowd (such as it exists at NPL level) to be visible, but that may also mean putting the camera on the side facing into a setting winter sun. And is the case with almost every single game broadcast from Gardiners Creek Reserve, the commentators staring into the sun can't see what's going on, and neither can the home viewer half the time because of lens flare. It's not exactly an appealing aspect of the live stream experience.

Next game

Tomorrow night against Dandenong Thunder. Oakleigh plays away to Avondale earlier in the day, so we'll know by our own kickoff time whether we'll be needing a win to retain top spot for another week. Top spot meaning not much at all officially, except for the hope and assumption that it will include entry into a post-season NPL champions tournament. 

Speaking of Harry Sawyer...

Earlier this year, Sawyer became the 10th known South Melbourne Hellas senior men's player to score four goals in a league match. On Saturday, he became the first known South Melbourne senior men's player to score four goals in a league game, twice.

We say "known", because the 1960 season, South's first, remains primeval in terms of lineups and scorer details. There were about ten league games in 1960 where South scored at least four goals, including two hauls of nine, and one of ten. In all likelihood, someone would have scored at least four in one of those games, and most likely more. 

But that shouldn't diminish Sawyer's achievement. To add to the novelty of this record, Sawyer's four goals on Saturday was the first (known) time that a South player had scored four or more in a league game, without any teammates scoring in the same game. Discussion however, over whether Sawyer is a better striker than Milos Lujic - as ventured into by some online South people - should be put aside for at least awhile yet. 

At some point as well, adding on the many other statistical oddities we'll have to take care of, is finding out which South player has scored the most goals against each opponent. For his part, Sawyer has scored 12 goals against Eastern Lions in four league games spanning 2020-2022.

Women's team

A week is a long time in football. Saturday the girls lost 4-2 to Box Hill, giving them a four match losing streak, and putting them miles out of the race for the finals. There was talk of player exits and holidays, and then the coach - a long-time servant at the club - parted ways with the club, farewelled with as perfunctory a press release as you can get. So far, so bad. Then on Tuesday night out at Oakleigh, they were 2-0 down against Heidelberg in the semi-final of the cup. Then came the comeback, and the 3-2 win, and progression into the final for the second season in a row. They'll meet the winner of the Bulleen-Calder match, which is taking place next week. I'm not sure we're equipped to beat either team, especially Calder, but stranger things have happened I suppose, and in a one-off game, you just never know.

Sponsor Splash-out

Here's some good news, with a strange twist. The club has just announced a record (post-NSL?) sponsorship deal with CF Capital, which will run for the next two seasons. Great, wonderful, can we afford to have Sunday games back now etc. They're even tipping in money specifically for the blind and powerchair teams, which is also good. My info on this is that after the agreement was already made to be our new principal partner, that after seeing the blind and powerchair teams at the player auction night, CF Capital decided to increase their sponsorship of the club. Who knew being a good social citizen could have such rewards?

The strange part however is no doubt this:

South Melbourne FC members and supporters will become familiar with the CF Capital brand around Lakeside Stadium as with signage featuring the logo prominently for the livestream audience in front of the Clarendon Corner. 

Are there enough people in Clarendon Corner most weeks nowadays to find this appealing? If Clarendon Corner does something stupid, do you really want to have your brand attached to that? Since we can no longer hear Clarendon Corner because of the nature of live stream filming from the opposite side of the ground, what can you actually see from that distance that makes it worthwhile? And what happens of Clarendon Corner decides, out of spite or whimsy, to just move to a different part of the stand? 

Ah, it's all moot anyway, everyone's too old to care.

Final thought

I completely forgot to take an inadvertent photo of my host's cable setup this time.

Moving on - South Melbourne 5 Eastern Lions 0

Though long since mentally broken by this club, I was still surprisingly in no mood to watch this game. I even contemplated going to the footy instead, but seeing all my friends swayed me to Lakeside. Besides, South still needs it more than Collingwood ever will.

One of the handful of people who still reads this guff wanted it made clear that not everyone agrees with my take on the Avondale/Australia Cup calamity. Fair enough, his objection is noted. Another reader suggested that my report was written as if I'd actually been there. A mighty compliment, but I defer to the South forum, from which I pieced together several items into a seemingly coherent and tangible whole. 

Quite a few of the few who were there, seemed already to have moved on from the shambles of our cup exit. Maybe they are genuinely that open minded and forgiving of those things that they cannot control. Maybe they are even more screwed up than people like me who are going to hold on to this and several other grudges until the end of time.

But as much as "get over it" seemed to be the catch cry of the night, I could not get over it. You can't make me feel things that I don't want to feel, or some such assertive psychobabble. So I watched this match in a state of emotional distance, which is quite something for someone who gets animated while watching pre-season matches of little consequence.

I've joked over the past few Esteban Quintas led seasons that we try to win 0-0. Well, I might not have liked the style, and it might not have been very effective, but despite the aesthetic atrocity that was the lowest scoring South team since about 1986, I never thought that we were trying to lose games. This year seemed different, too, because we were doing well enough to keep picking up wins, often doing so by scoring multiple goals.

And then last Wednesday happened and... it's going to take time for me to trust the collective brains trust managing the senior men's wing again. I spent most of the time chatting with a fellow ex-academic about my exit from the academic world in early 2019, and to be honest, it was just nice to chat. I mean, I've told that story too many times, and it's three years and a still ongoing pandemic ago, but we were 3-0 up after half an hour or some such, and it just didn't seem to matter. 

The performance didn't validate the decision, by whoever was responsible, to effectively tank against Avondale. Maybe if we lost to Eastern Lions, or had only a narrow victory it might have been able to read something different into the week, but Lions were so, so poor. Not allowed the freedom of previous recent encounters to start attacks from well up the field, they didn't fire a shot. Their man getting sent off at 3-0 for no good reason would have summed things up perfectly, except for former South goalkeeper Keegan Coulter getting benched at 4-0 down and five minutes to play summing things up even more perfectlier. 

Meanwhile we could have probably scored twice as many as we did, but that would have perhaps been greedy. Post-match most people seemed to be in a good mood, especially those celebrating Thunder's upset win over Avondale which saw us go six points clear at the top. I'm sure I'll join everyone else in that good mood place eventually.

Record matching

Sawyer's four goal haul saw him become the tenth (known) senior men's South Melbourne Hellas player to score four goals in a league match. He joins the following players in achieving that feat:

• Ernie Ackerley, vs Melbourne Hungaria, VSL Round 8, 1966
• Tom Clarke, vs Box Hill, VSL Round 16, 1971
• Charlie Egan, vs Newcastle Rosebud United, NSL Round 17, 1984
• Kimon Taliadoros, vs West Adelaide, NSL Round 7, 1991-1992
• Ivan Kelic, vs Wollongong Wolves, NSL Round 16, 1995-1996
• Con Boutsianis, vs Northern Spirit, NSL Round 30, 2000-2001
• Michael Curcija, vs Kingz FC, NSL Round 11, 2003-2004
• Goran Zoric, vs Preston Lions, VPL Round 3, 2009
• Gianni De Nittis, vs Hume City, VPL Round 8, 2010

Now there's probably a good chance that one more South players achieved (or surpassed) this feat during the 1960 season, but good luck scrounging up the specifics on that.

Next game

Away to Dandenong Thunder on Saturday night. Please be aware that kickoff for the senior match has been pushed back from 7:00PM to 7:45PM, one assumes to better accommodate the Ramadan/iftar observances of many of Thunder's supporters and volunteers.

Fixture change

Our upcoming round 9 fixture has also had a change. We were supposed to host Oakleigh on Saturday April 16th, but the fixture has been reversed, and the game will be played at Jack Edwards Reserve on April 18th, Easter Monday. This is apparently because relevant grand prix infrastructure will not have been packed away quickly enough.

The NPLW match scheduled for April 16th, against Alamein - and which was meant to be the curtain raiser to the NPL match - at this stage still looks like it will proceed as scheduled. 

Women's team

Speaking of the senior women, I caught a chunk of the second half of their season opener against Bulleen on the screens in the social club, and it seemed like an improvement on whatever happened in the first half to see them 3-0 down at the break. Now it's always a bit of a wonky affair across the board while waiting for A-League Women players to have a rest from the close of that season before they jump into state league duties, but... what's this I hear about perhaps not so many W-League players coming back to Lakeside?

Some chat going around last Saturday that Gabrielle Giuliano, the board's driving force behind the club's women's component, will be scaling back her involvement with the club. Likely related to that, there was also vague mention made of a change in direction for the women's program, whatever that means.

Someone made a tweet - since deleted - making an interesting assertion about what that change in direction might mean. But that could have also been a huge fever dream on my part. 

Final thought

The club really has to sort out its multiple booze problems. No booze outside last week, and no one able to find the gin inside.

Painful - South Melbourne 2 Eastern Lions 1

Gerrie Sylaidos aims to keep the ball in play. 
Photo: Gold Leaf Creative.

At home, yelling at the television. That's not a way to live, not for the NPL. But enough on that. we all know what that's like. 

What this game revealed is that there's something to be said for the mentality you take into a match. Eastern Lions came to Lakeside looking to try and win the game, and South... I'm not sure South went into the game trying to win it. When they took the lead, when they were down to ten men, and then chasing the game, Lions were trying to win the game. It may not have been the smartest thing to do in every situation, but as a fan of a team which is cautious to a fault, my goodness it was invigorating (and infuriating) to see a team that no one in our league really rates, having a go because quite clearly their coach believes in the talent at his disposal.

And while ordinarily I would use the term "limited" next to the word "talent", it would be a misnomer to a certain extent, because in this league every player's talent is limited. Even the talent of a squad as a whole is limited. Some are more limited than others, but at this level the standard of individual players is such that individually and collectively there are faults and weaknesses which are glaring. That's fine, we all know what we're watching and who we're watching.

But these players and teams also have strengths, and credit to Lions, they seem to focus more on what they can do rather than what they can't. Can I say the same for South Melbourne? Maybe those closer to the team can, but I can't. Maybe the emphasis is slanted toward a method I can't discern. Maybe the coaches believe the greatest strength of the team is not in its individual and collective talent, but in its adaptability; not in terms of changing its approach to a game based on different circumstances presented to it, but rather, every player should be able to play within a variety of positions within the rigid philosophy set by Esteban Quintas; a philosophy which seems to be, play almost no one in the same position two weeks in a row; that nearly every player belongs in the starting line-up; and that we should sit as deep as possible, and hold on to the ball for as long as possible, and take as few chances as possible.

We move the ball back and around, back and around, sideways and backwards, and only pass the ball forwards at "obvious" moments where it's not likely to come back the other way. I could talk about taking more chances in midfield, but that would be too obvious. But here's the worst of it: we pass the ball back to the keeper when there is no material benefit in doing so. So on Wednesday, Lirim Elmazi (but it could be any of our rotating cast of centre backs), will collect the ball on the edge of his own box, pass the ball back maybe a metre or two to goalkeeper Pierce Clark, who then passes it back to Lirim. An eternity passes by in the meantime, as the playing system which seeks to instil an abject deferral of responsibility to someone else at all times comes into play.

Thus we are trailing, and there is no urgency. Urgency is different from panic; panic is wayward, agitated, scattershot. Urgency is alert, aware, and proactive. We are not proactive, at least not nearly as much as we should be. Is there open shot on offer? Let's hold on to it. Is there a pass that could be made? Let's hold on to it  Should we put in a corner directly into the box, to our tall timber, against a small and inexperienced back up goalkeeper? Let's play it short, and hold on to it.

I'm not against rotating players, horses for courses when it's necessary or obvious, nor in giving young players a go. But where's the method to how it's done here? Where is the method anywhere? Without going back and harping on our last period of success four years ago, because the circumstances were different then - a much bigger budget for a start - there is one thing we can say about the Chris Taylor era: that for all his drawbacks as a coach, he had a method. It isn't even about the method working or not, but I would like to know what is the exact thinking that goes into team selection, team arrangement, team philosophy. Of course Quintas doesn't really do interviews, and his English isn't crash hot either, but still... what's the method?

Say we get to a stage where we have our next FFA Cup against an NPL opponent as opposed to Monbulk Rangers (and let's hope that it is Monbulk Rangers in the next round). Or let's say that we are in a finals match. So, a game in which, if we lose, our participation in the competition ceases. What is our best team? Who is in our starting eleven? How are they arranged? What does the bench look like? I don't think anyone, not the fans, not the coach, nor the players, can honestly say what that starting eleven looks like.

Anyway, we haven't scored from open play for several matches (against Hume was the last time), and since then we have scrounged whatever results we have thanks to penalties, and on Wednesday a set piece (a corner). Maybe it was a case of Daniel Clark playing 5D chess when he rounded Keegan Coulter and didn't take the initial shot; he probably would have missed, or it would have been cleared off the line, or something would have gone wrong. And not even because it was Daniel Clark, though he's had a torrid time in front of goals the last couple of games, but because we just do not seem to remember how to score.

Even the young lad (was it Sasha Murphy?) who was teed up by Henry Hore (the only player who seemingly takes the game on with any consistency in forward positions) and blasted a gimme goal wide. Luckily for all concerned, Clark's eventual shot (which may have ended up going on to hit the post) was saved by the hands of a diving Lions outfielder. It was a remarkable sequence of play which changed the game on several fronts. One, we scored from the penalty (thank goodness) and equalised; two, the Lions defender got sent off; and three, Coulter injured himself in trying to prevent Clark from getting to the ball first.

Even so, Lions did not go into their shell and try and grind out the match. They played to win, and made us look silly in the process. And it wasn't even like those cliched "ten men firing up against eleven" moments - they were outplaying us tactically. Sitting deep and using the false nine set up (because we have no strikers) was not going well. Thank goodness that we finally decided to put a corner directly into the box, which Elmazi scored from, because otherwise we were going to be riding our luck for the the rest of the game. Which we did anyway, because we took off Elmazi straight after his goal, which must be a sign that Quintas has supreme confidence in the team, much more than I could possibly have.

Skipper Brad Norton chaired off in his 250th game.
Photo: Gold Leaf Creative.

Unable to finish them off - even three on three chances were ruined by repeated poor touches - we managed to get away with it, as Lions failed to bundle a late goal home from very close range. The whole experience reminded me somewhat of that Dockerty Cup quarter final from 2013 against Preston, Makeshift line up against an inferior opponent, and needing all the luck in the world to get through. I suppose we should be happy that we did, but my goodness it was hard work watching this game. Centre backs playing defensive mid when your defensive mid is on the bench. No strikers, and the bloke you recruited and called a striker (but who is really an attacking mid) not able to run out a full game (or so it seems).

And I just can't wait to go and see and complain about it all the in flesh again.

Next game

At home on tonight against the winless Altona Magic.

Final thought

Congratulations to Brad Norton on his 250th game for the club.

Clichés - South Melbourne 1 Eastern Lions 1

For this week and likely the next two or three weeks to come, match reports on South of the Border will be more useless than usual. I was a bit concerned by a recent sudden decline in the vision in my one working eye; it turns out that my lens prescription hasn't changed, and it's just that I need a new pair of glasses. So pandemic sluggishness of international trade and mail systems notwithstanding, hopefully the folks at Nikon in Japan can get me my new lenses sooner rather than later. 

It's not that everyday things have become impossible to do or enjoy, but reading certainly has become harder, and to a certain extent so has typing, at least on machines in this house that aren't my own laptop. For a very long time now it hasn't bothered me that I might not be able to tell one South player from another at first glance. Friday night though showed that things were a bit worse than that, both due to the distance separating the field from the stand, but also surprisingly because of the glare of the floodlights filtering haphazardly through my scratched up lens.

Thanks to an unrelated problem with my bad eye (which has corneal scarring), sometimes moderate infections in that eye can cause a sensitivity to light which affects the good eye as well. I haven't had that issue spark up for a while (I suppose that it helps that I've spent most of the past year indoors and away from people), and besides which, most NPL games are played at night, and in winter where overbearing sunlight is less of an issue. 

The previous Sunday at Jack Edwards was fine enough by my standards, but I wasn't prepared for the shock of the glare caused by the Lakeside Stadium lighting hitting my way too scratched up lenses. So for the next little while I must be more patient than usual with my ocular deficiencies

Having said all that, I was still able to see enough on Friday night to be concerned, as were many of you; though bless, some of you are willing to be bit more patient, and more power to you for being able to take that stance. We all want to see evidence that something has changed in Esteban Quintas' coaching method during his admittedly interrupted tenure as South coach, but all we are seeing is much of the same, performed by slightly different personnel. And thus for many of us, the question remains pretty basic - what is he trying to get this team to do? 

There are many paths to victory in soccer,  none of which can guarantee success. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Some teams rely on the innate superiority of their playing personnel. That approach requires money, and since we are trying to cut costs, that's not an approach we can take. We do have some talent on the books, but right at this moment we are not a destination club for the league's best players looking for a high wage.

Some teams go for a physical approach, seeking to outmuscle and outrun their opposition. The hope is to make up for deficiencies in skill by wearing down your opponent. It won't be a pretty approach, and the problem here is that your advantage is unlikely to be that great against most opponents. You can recruit big and fast, but chances are that the sacrifice made to gain strength and stamina over skill will only get you so far against teams that can move the ball quickly and effectively. And besides which, in a semi-pro league, how much faster and stronger can you expect the players to get?

Some coaches specialise in being motivators, getting their teams to run through brick walls for them. In theory you're never out of a game if you're playing for someone like that; but the funny thing about this approach is how it eventually runs up against the reality of superior opposition, who may or may not be as equally motivated as you. And there's another thing too - players aren't robots. They can't be "up" for every game at the same level every week. 

Then there's tactics. Good tacticians make lesser teams more competitive, and make talented teams more than the sum of their parts already excellent parts. Tacticians understand their team's strengths and weaknesses and play to maximise one and minimise the other. They seek to nullify or at least manage the strengths of the opposition, and exploit their weaknesses. Where they can, tacticians seek to recruit with an eye for their preferred style of play, and where they can't, they try to make do with what they have, selecting a team where the best player plays in the most suitable position.

All of this is really basic stuff, and yet if someone can tell where we fit into any of this, I'd love to hear it. All we have seen so far in 2021 - which doesn't seem to differ too much from the little we saw in 2020, and the second half of 2019 - is a complete lack of imagination and especially courage, let alone a discernable tactical approach. I have to assume that the players are playing to instruction; if they are not, then clearly Quintas message is not getting through. If they are following instruction, and this method is the result of that, then Quintas needs to take responsibility for it.

One of the most instructive moments in coaching practice I happened to witness was many years ago at Point Gellibrand, back when I used to make intermittent trips to watch Williamstown footy club play. Brad Gotch was the coach of Willy at the time, and in the three quarter time huddle he made this point to his players, who were trailing at three quarter time - that the coaches had designed a game plan, that it was the players' duty to implement it on the field, and that if they did so and the results did not stack up, then the coaches would take responsibility.

Where is the evidence that anyone is taking any responsibility or initiative for South Melbourne's style of play? We have overloaded the side with defenders and defensive height that we have hamstrung a whole side of attack. We are playing a true centre-back in Luke Adams at right back. Adams cannot effectively overlap, yet the most obvious alternatives in Lirim Elmazi and Perry Lambropoulos are either injured (are they even?) or out of favour for reasons unclear to me, and Ben Djiba is still a few weeks away from playing after a pre-season injury.

Apart from Zac Bates, who showed a little something off the bench, we had no attacking options on hand. While the concern with Bates is always on whether he can run out a game, he can at least use his speed to harass opponents and break open lines. He's no Matt Millar (yet), but the midfield (when it wasn't bypassed by longball after longball) was otherwise so static that it made me pine for the manic method of Melvin Becket.

The tactical psychological cowardice of the first half was infuriating. It's one thing to be cautious and patient when playing against a leading side; but we were playing against a team that everyone knows is going to struggle to stay up, and yet in the first half we sat back and waited for openings to present themselves. 

If you're meant to be a serious contender you don't wait for openings against a team like that, you go out and make them yourself. Instead we resorted to playing the ball endlessly across the back line, before eventually squeezing ourselves into a narrow space next to the touchline and hoofing the ball on to Harry Sawyer's head; or worse, hoofing it onto the head of Gerrie Sylaidos or Henry Hore, players who need the ball at their feet in order to make the most of their talents.

Right at this moment, those two players may as well be Fernando De Moraes playing for New Zealand Knights, watching the ball ping back and forth over their heads. How are we supposed to score with such a method? We were fortunate in round 1 to score from a legitimate albeit very irregular goal, and on Friday night it was the one long ball that worked, and which Lions will be spewing they conceded from.

Sure our team managed to accrue other chances in the second half, and probably should have grabbed another goal; but even if we had, the whole affair would still have remained unconvincing. I'm less upset about the goal we conceded now than I was at the time - there's always a chance someone's going to hit the ball just right from range and score a cracker - but that's where you should be prepared to be scoring two goals a game on a motr regular basis. Out of 31 matches in charge of the team in the league and cup, using a variety of players, a Quintas coached side has managed to score more than one goal on just ten occasions. Demonstrating how front loaded this stat is, in our last ten matches we've scored more than one goal on just twice.

1, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 0, 2, 2, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 3, 1, 2, 0, 0, 5, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1.

If you're not scoring goals, you're not going to win games. If you're scoring only one goal a game, you're basically relying on the opposition being repeatedly inept in front of goals to get you the win. Now if the plan is to make up for a shortfall in available talent - which should not have been an issue against Eastern Lions - with a grinding, cautious, risk-averse game plan, why the hell do we need to hire an Argentine with experience of playing in Spain to do that? There must be dozens of local coaches who could achieve the same results using the same playing style.

We don't play effectively a neat passing style, we don't play a nimble pass and move style; apart from our defensive players, and Josh Wallen at defensive mid, we don't or can't play a bruising, intimidating style. We seem to lack line-breakers, or we if we have them, we are wary of using them. Just about the only thing that seems to have improved in an attacking sense at this early stage of the 2021 season is our being a threat from set pieces, and it's something we're going to have to rely on if we cannot score goals more regularly from open play.

Next game

Back to Jack Edwards Reserve on Friday night, against Oakleigh Cannons.

The match day experience

How nice of my phone to remember the details I'd entered the last time I went to Lakeside and did the covid sign-in procedure. Still, other things went a bit funny. Not getting my membership card clipped, a bit odd, but maybe everyone just knows that I'm a paid-up member. But well-known South supporter and scourge of South committees "Box", somehow scoring himself a corporate access pass? The man himself was most confused and amused by this, but he was glad to be able to take advantage (in moderation, I'm sure) of the club's probably unintended hospitality. Well, I did say that the club needed to show more signs of goodwill to its supporters.

I'm not sure if Box paid any attention to the Australian soccer heavy-hitters being entertained upstairs in the South Melbourne corporate spaces. Those upset by the presence of particular heavy-hitters present on Friday are free to hate as their hearts desire, but moaning about Football Australia bigwigs being there at all seems counter-productive. If such people are in town, and you have delusions of grandeur in terms of being an important club; or just the plain desire to feel more important for a couple of hours than you otherwise would, then you simply must do this kind of schmoozing. Besides which, even if nothing comes of it in the form a National Second Division or some such, then at least the club's sponsors would hopefully be impressed enough to keep supporting the club.

Meanwhile down in the lower decks with the plebs: after many years of food of erratic quality, which in recent years was also served at an embarrassingly slow pace, have we turned the corner in the social club? It's too early to say if the good vibes on the social club catering front will last a whole season, but the verdict from those who ate and drank within the social club on Friday night seemed to be positive. Reportedly good quality food (even with a beetroot flavoured bun on the burgers), and very fast service. I haven't had the chance to sample the food yet, but I did manage to grab a gin and tonic, which saw the return of name brand gin and an $8 price point, a welcome step down from the $10 of the past couple of seasons.

Speared

The day before our game, the scheduled W-League game at Lakeside was moved to a closed doors match at AAMI Park because the pitch was deemed unsuitable. Disappointing for them, and annoying for us that we still had to play on that ground, but what else we can do? We share a venue with athletics, the nature of whose use of the grass field is very different from our own. Our season starts in February, coinciding with their peak events, which cause significant damage to the playing surface that takes weeks and not mere days to properly repair. And yet we also want late summer home matches early in the season, as well as avoiding clogging up the schedule and overuse of the ground in winter. No way out of it, unless relocate the club to Oakleigh.

Where is Luke Patitsas?

His Sour Grapes blog seems not to have been updated yet this season. Where are people who want to read about what actually happened during a game (including me), supposed to go for information now? Is Luke temporarily pre-occupied with more important writing? Or has South of the Border outlasted another blog from the state leagues?

Tearing apart the fibres holding together the Twitter universe

This is a not a big deal, really, just something stupid that's happening on the old Twitter machine at the moment. Several years ago now, Shouty Mike blocked me on Twitter. In recent weeks, I've had to mute a certain hashtag (#aleague) because a certain media organisation I appear on had begun to live tweet A-League games, and I didn't need that guff clogging up my timeline. As with muting a user rather than blocking them, muting a hashtag means I have the option of viewing a post with said content should I choose to. Somehow Twitter's internal machinery has decided that so far as my muting of #aleague goes, this includes being able to see the posts Shouty Mike has used #aleague in, despite his having blocked me.

Not on the streams

With six of the round's seven matches being played on Friday night, opportunities to watch the streams of any other games were pretty limited. For both those who like to stream games, but especially those who prefer to go to games, this is a less than ideal situation. Blaming Football Victoria though won't really cut it here; the clubs choose their timeslots based on what suits their likely audience and other fixture commitments, and Football Victoria tries to put together the puzzle of the fixture as best it can. 

I'm personally miffed at the lack of a Sunday home game this week - even a Labour Day game would have been nice - but I guess our club and others would baulk clashing with NPL juniors for Sunday games, or public holiday penalty rates, or having only a short turnaround before the inevitable Friday night fixture in the following round. 

The less said about the chance to attend early round FFA Cup games locally, the better, what with most of them being on the other other side of town. The only streamable game available was Magic vs Avondale, which I didn't watch for two reasons. First, the way the wind rockets through the effects mic on the bad side of Paisley Park. Second, I just plain forgot. 

Instead I read (thanks to reasonably large print) Helen Garner's memoirish novel (though I'd call it a novella) The Spare Room, whose plot centres on a woman who takes on a three week stint caring for a terminally ill friend, not fully realising what such a task will entail. If I were being flippant I'd say there were at ;east some similarities to supporting a once great Australian soccer club, but that would be a very juvenile take,

Final thought

Best wishes to Socceroo and South Melbourne Hellas championship player Ted Smith, who is recovering after a minor stroke suffered during the week.

Pre-season rolls along

Another senior men's pre-season friendly today, played behind closed doors at Lakeside. Another youthful South line-up, and another win, 3-2 over Eastern Lions. The appearance of winger Matthew Loutrakis in the post-match interview allows me to move him from the "existential limbo" status to "2021 senior roster" status, as per the edit to the previous post.

More nothing than you can poke a stick at

Even though the pandemic is hardly over, Australia is gradually opening up again, and across the board sports are looking to resume in some form or another. So are is the NPL Victoria coming back this year?

Last week indiscreet murmurings on internet forums suggested that in our division, nine of the fourteen clubs weren't too keen to resume in 2020. Furthermore, the other five clubs, while wanting to resume, were sympathetic to those that didn't want to start again, especially if it meant not having crowds and the associated revenue at games.

But this apparent understanding began coming undone when news seeped out that the NPL 2 and 3 teams were keen on getting their seasons underway. How this would work without promotion to and relegation from the top division is an interesting question.

The whole notion of a detente however was blasted out of the water by Hume City's president Steve Kaya, who railed against the apparently ten NPL Victoria clubs refusing to resume, and noting that his club had resumed training. So, one team named within one faction, thirteen more to go across both. Then Green Gully announced that it was also resuming training, and the question for me was where did South sit?

My hunch - and it was only a hunch - was probably on the side of South being one of those not keen on coming back. That's less because of middling our performances had been, and mostly because our president Nick Maikousis had said at the beginning of the competition's shutdown that he didn't think the competition would return.

But according to Michael Lynch, alongside Hume and Gully, it's our club and Eastern Lions who make up the group of four clubs looking and/pushing for a resumption in play. Though there's some soccer-forum conjecture about Lions are actually in favour of resuming.

Football Victoria, which has been sending out intermittent updates on the situation via email, has a hopeful target of early July for the resumption of NPL senior football. From my isolated locale, I can't tell what's likely to happen.

Do the fans really want play to resume so badly that they're willing to put up with not being able to go to games? Are the players keen enough to come back even though it would mean having to put up with extremely stringent safety procedures on match days and at training? Is there even genuine scope for a return while the corona virus is still active within the community? What's the point of resuming if the whole thing can probably get shutdown with just one case if the virus in a player or official?

As usual, I've got a lot of questions and no answers.

Lakeside to receive funds for renovation
In other COVID-19 related news, the state government is planning to upgrade a wide variety of sporting facilities, as part of a pandemic economic recovery plan. According to this article in The Age, that includes renovation of Lakeside Stadium, whatever that means.

Match programs
Program-wise I've added the "possibly incomplete" Canberra City away 1980, the "I recently bought a copy off eBay" Sydney Olympic away 2004, and the "I was tardy in scanning it" Green Gully away 2019 to the collection. You know where to find these by now.

Nobody happy - South Melbourne 5 Eastern Lions 2

Come on, Pierce, give us a smile! You're playing for South Melbourne!
Photo: Luke Radziminski. 

It was said a few times after this game, but when was the last time we put five goals past an opponent and yet felt this bad? The playing squad's morale might be the best it's been in years, but the fans I'm blessed(?) to interact with are pretty much all doom and gloom. I mean how else to explain being two rounds in and this already being a must win game? How dreadful, how vile, how... sickening. And I mean literally sickening - when we were 2-1 up, and Lions' had a free kick saved by our goalkeeper Pierce Clark, I felt like I was going to have a massive spew. A good thing that soon afterward Harrison (Harry?) Sawyer completed his hat-trick, and the game was pretty much put away.

Before that there was plenty of entertainment for those who'd made the trip to the club's lone Sunday home game for this season. Chris Irwin scuffed an early chance which by his own admission he should've buried, but we got the opener soon enough anyway thanks to what looked liked a mysterious penalty at the time. On replay, you can see the shirt tug on the player attempting to make the run into the box during a corner, and more importantly, you can see the referee looking right at that shirt tug.

You can argue that it was charity, you can argue that it was soft, and you can argue that those sorts of things happen all the time. And if you argued that, you'd be right, but why should it happen at all? My argument has long been that if officials were stricter with punishing that kind of shirt pulling that it'd get rid of it pretty quickly. Now having seen yellow flag after yellow flag thrown in the NFL for holding, and no obvious reduction in players trying to get away with illegal manoeuvres of that sort, my thinking may be more wish/desire oriented than anything based in reality. But even if punishment doesn't act as a deterrent, it at least acts as punishment, which within the context we're dealing with, is a good enough starting point.

Irresponsible treatment of beer. Photo: Luke Radziminski.

Having taken the lead, we were rocked out of our very temporary complacency by Lions equalising with a free kick that didn't look all that convincingly taken at the time. Even looking at it afterwards, I don't know what happened, and why goalkeeper Pierce Clark seemed to latch on to it so late. We retook the lead very soon after, which only settled the nerves ever so much because, as noted above, Lions took another dangerous free kick, this time well dealt with by Clark. After a false dawn and a premature beer shower for a goal called offside, we eventually pretty much finished this game off with Sawyer's third, like his second goal a header from a corner. And the beer shower for that goal was at least legit.

Responsible treatment of beer.
Photo: Luke Radziminski.

Three first half goals essentially from corners then - one indirectly thanks to the penalty, and two direct, which is the kind of thing we didn't see enough of last year. Sawyer probably has a knack for this kind of thing, but by the Lions' assistant coach's own admission on soccer-forum after the game, the away side put in some terrible efforts at defending set pieces. Good delivery aside, and keeping in mind that scoring from corners is pretty much a lottery at the best of times, I just can't see us being marked that slackly for the entire rest of the season. Still, if any future opponents wish to be that generous, I'm happy to let them oblige.

The second half was pretty much a stroll - except for late substitution Matthew Loutrakis, who got a kick in the face from a Lions opponent - just waiting for that fourth goal to really make sure of it. After that came the fifth courtesy of a showboating team manoeuvre, which highlighted how poor Lions were on the day defensively. To their credit, the away team fought it out, but their lack of quality across the park was obvious for all to see. Not to disparage a club which has done exceptionally well to reach this level - nor to write them off after two games - but who were most of their players? A lot of clubs who make the step up end up recycling at least a few blokes who've been around the Victorian top-flight merry-go-round before; but the only names of theirs I immediately recognised were short-term ex-South keeper Keegan Coulter, and former South trialist and firebrand striker Amir Osmancevic.

As for us, it's been only two games, and yet I think we have a pretty good handle on what this South team will be able to do. Certainly not a front-runner, and probably lucky to make finals. Even though you never know what might happen, it's a squad with too much depth to be in serious relegation danger, especially when you have teams like Lions and Altona Magic whose budgets restrict them in what they'll produce. Goodness knows if well be able to produce anything in the middle channel, especially on smaller and narrower grounds - and this is what frightens me - especially if we fall behind. If we manage to go up, and force to teams to open up as they chase the game, we'll probably be the game

Next game
Oakleigh at Jack Edwards on Friday night, beginning our customary run of early season away games. No one's expecting us to win this game, and no one's expecting us to draw, and pretty much everyone's expecting us to get spanked; the idea behind that being, apart from Oakleigh looking good, that we couldn't beat them there even when we were good, so six losses there on the trot will become seven. I'd like to be more optimistic than that, but I'm struggling.


Alternative reality
Why was the live stream initially displaying a backdrop of Central Coast Stadium? For those watching at home, it must've been a confusing affair. I know we did try and take over the Mariners a few years ago, including the farcical proposal to split games between Melbourne and Gosford, but callbacks to gags seven years ago seems a bit of a stretch. What's more, once the stream was sorted out, home viewers had to deal with the commentary stylings of Greg Blake, Australian soccer's one time sort of answer to Aussie Rules' Sam Newman - in the entertainment sense, not the try-hard non-PC gimmick sense.

Mispronunciations of player names aside - and the one person who was upset that Blake referred to South on several occasions as "Hellas" - the audience feedback on Blake's style seemed to be fairly split down the middle. People either loved it, or hated it. While I can see the appeal for some in Blake's schtick, I'm more in the latter mode. But I guess part of the appeal of the NPL live streams for those not of a gambling mindset is the variety of commentary styles - I like Dan Lonergan's energetic style for example, which a few people find too much like listening to footy or horse racing. Still, I wish Blake was quarantined to Heidelberg games.

Claim and counter-claim
I suppose the one good thing about last week's continuing coverage of our alleged wage theft was, if you can frame it that way, that it became so bogged down by claim and counter-claim that even the niche audience that was nominally interested in the story has mostly moved on. And in Australian soccer, there's always something new to latch on to and gawk at.

On an unrelated note, thank you Tony Sage.

But for us remaining South fans, our focus remains resolutely on South. Following on from last week's match report post on the blog, the club released a statement that in the famous words of David Byrne, had both "good points, some bad points". The good points? I guess for me that's mostly in noting that the players are on professional contracts, as opposed to the (implied) pseudo-amateur contracts that other clubs up and down the lower tiers have their players on. There's also the club's support for a more formal process for wage issues between clubs and players.

If you were in a more generous mood than I, you may also say that the club managed to pick up on the vagueness of the allegations made in Tom Smithies' article. An annoying aspect of that vagueness is that it was picked up on by some of our fans, who have pursued the I suppose logical extension of "why don't the players pursue the matters via legal channels"; an idea easily refuted by the fact that lawyers cost money, and for young players especially that's money they don't necessarily have at hand. And considering the relatively small amounts being alleged (admittedly not small to the players themselves), likely to be swallowed up by any legal action.

The bad points? The digressions into the allegations of conspiracy, which plays well to parts of our membership, but makes us look deranged to outsiders. The demand for a journalist to reveal his sources, which I guess someone drafting this press release must have thought was a good idea. The not coming out outright and saying that the club do not owe former players any monies, leaving that as an assumption rather than as a definite statement of fact. The club instead noted that it was "very comfortable with its position regarding all past and current players", whatever that means. I'm not good at reading between the lines.

Anyway, Smithies followed up his first article with another one, which notes that:

... it [Professional Footballers Association] is involved in "a number of disputes with South Melbourne" and that it is seeking the involvement of both FFV and Football Federation Australia after previous attempts "to resolve the matters amicably" had not worked.

Who knows how true this all is, nor who the relevant players are. As much as some of us would like to heap scorn on the committee, it is possible that everything is actually legit. Like the claims by former player Liam McCormick from a couple years ago that he was owed wages - this could all be a result of the current relevant players signing what they thought was simply a standard form with some boilerplate clauses, not realising what they were signing - even though the forms are pretty clear as far as I can tell. Because McCormack decided to put his name to his claim when this issue flared up in 2018, the club - apart from knowing it had the law (technical or otherwise) on its side - clearly felt comfortable in leaking McCormack's player release forms, damaging the credibility of both McCormack and Clement Tito, the journalist who wrote the article at the time.

This time none of these players has come forward, and thus it makes it harder for the club to just come out and use the same tactic, assuming that the relevant players have in fact McCormacked themselves, and assuming that the club is even sure who the relevant three players are. And surely a journalist with the seniority and experience of Smithies wouldn't make such a rookie error as Tito did, by trusting the word of the players without corroborating evidence.

What's strange and slightly counter-intuitive about this situation is that the real, original, and genuinely noteworthy story - Chris Taylor's win at FIFA, pending an appeal from us - has receded into the background. Taylor's successful (so far) litigation is, without knowing what's owed to anyone else that may be owed any sum of money, by any stretch of the imagination a much more tangible and newsworthy event than the (so far) small sums allegedly owed. Like the Avondale senior team wage spreadsheet leak from last year, this story offers a peek into the kinds of money being paid to run a senior team at this level, the kind of detail that mug punters almost never get to see. In that sense Smithies' article, which on some level appears to be an (understandable) opportunistic follow up story pushed by representatives of the ex-South players who allege they are owed money, is a much messier and "he said-she said" kind of situation.

As for fan responses, they seem to have generally fallen into three categories. Those who've used the story as an opportunity to bash South, and occasionally by extension the proposed national second division and/or ethnic clubs; those who have sought to defend the club, mostly South people but not always, seeing a witch-hunt and conspiracy against South, and occasionally by extension any notion of a national second division and/or ethnic clubs; but there's also a third faction, made up only of South fans - and most of whom seem to be on smfcfans.net - which while not completely trusting media reports on these matters, also do not trust the board and are unwilling to give the board and its version of events the benefit of the doubt. For them, having lost most of their faith in the trustworthiness of committees, it's going to be a long way back before they believe anything that comes of a South committee person's mouth.

If You Know Your History is back
Mine and Ian Syson's little radio show on Football Nation Radio has resumed for 2020. This year we're on Tuesdays at 8:00pm, but you can always catch up with whatever is we've been doing by checking out our blog.

Final thought
Wild scenes when one of Ian Syson's sons has been to a South game more recently than the old man.

Typical - South Melbourne 2 Eastern Lions 0

Even with a four o'clock kickoff, the heat of the day tended towards being oppressive. Quite why anyone was dumb enough to spend any time out in the sun, including but not limited to Clarendon Corner and quasi-affiliated persons, is a mystery. At least CC decided to move into the grandstand in the second half, which helped preserve certain persons' pale skin from getting burnt. The two teams required to be out there were not so fortunate - but they are nominally there for our amusement, not their own.

What can one say of the various performances yesterday? Milos Lujic seemed to just cruise through this game, putting in the bare minimum of effort - more worrying is the state of his finishing, with two first half headers he'd normally at least get on target being sent wide being particularly troubling. Jesse Daley's wonderful crossing exploits from last week went down the tube yesterday (relatively), but he was still one of our better players. Kristian Konstantinidis again played well - but for how long he'll be a free man remains to be seen. Leigh Minopoulos did OK, Matthew Millar provided little more than a physical presence, while the defence overall handled itself well, even playing out of the back with more confidence - although the opposition's tendency to sit too deep did make things easier on that front.

We didn't use a photo of Brad Norton avoiding a tackle in last week's post,
because we just knew there'd be another one this week. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

Skipper Brad Norton seemed to find his crossing range in this game, sending in some decent balls into the box, including one in the lead up to our first goal. A good switch of play from Carl Piergianni to Norton, who in turn sent an early ball which found Minopoulos deep in the box, who in turn cut a low ball in front of goal which could have been raffled by two South players, Lujic getting the crucial touch. Lions' defensive efforts weren't great in any part of this sequence, but credit must go to the decisive and accurate passing efforts of our players to make something happen here.

That goal saw Lujic became the first South player other than Minopoulos to score from open play for us this season, unless you're counting Lujic's goal in the Community Shield, which doesn't change the argument in any meaningful way - it's still Milos and Leigh doing all the heavy lifting on the goal scoring front. One could not possibly credit Jesse Daley with the second goal yesterday. His harmless free kick - not a cross, not a shot, not anything really - was heading safely towards the grasp of the Lions goalkeeper, when a Lions defender intervened to slice it spectacularly into his own net. That just about sealed the game. Nikola Roganovic had to make one low save, after our defence went to sleep from a free kick, but not much more than that during the second half.

Our finishing let us down again. After withstanding the best that Eastern Lions could throw at us, we should have won by more than the two goals that we did. But when you start from the low base that we have this season, you take the win and move on. One thing we seemed to do better in this match, and to a lesser extent last week, is move the ball around quicker than we have been doing. After watching the highlights of a certain higher profile fixture which took place last night, and the speedy ball movement in that game, clearly we have room to improve on that front. But it is getting better.

Looking forward to the next round of the cup, and while the draw hasn't been done at the time of writing, the odds of us being put up against an NPL team seem pretty good. Despite a couple of close shaves, every NPL team progressed except for the strugglers North Geelong (see this week's 'Around the grounds') and St Albans. As per Chris Taylor's post-game interview (complete with over the top gesturing in the background), we're going to have to play a lot better to make the inroads we're expected to in both the league and cup.

Next game
Oakleigh Cannons - who didn't seem to have any trouble putting away NPL 2 West's Brunswick City - away on Friday night. Just two away games to go before we head back to Lakeside. Speaking of which...

It is worth noting...
That this pending return to Lakeside is not only a matter of playing at home - but also the small fact of the players being able to train at Lakeside, instead of cutting a nomadic trail across Melbourne looking for any scrap of passable dirt on which to practice. It has not been an uncommon practice over recent years for the team to be away from Lakeside in the early part of the season, but this year has been particularly bad on that front. It's not the be all and end all of our struggles this season, but it's not not a factor either.

Social club rumours
No photos this week, but apparently progress is still going well. It's been suggested to me that the launch will effectively be a three day affair - the jersey night on the Friday before our first home game, then a family day on the Saturday, and our first home of the season on the day after.

Great moments in 'I guess you just had to be there'
The hill behind the western goal at John Cain Memorial Park is gone, flattened to make room for a new pitch. The mess of a scoreboard that was on the far corner of that hill is also gone. The bandwagon that attached itself to Northcote circa 2011 is, as we're all aware of, long gone. But the lemon tree out the back of the grandstand is still there. When they get rid of that - and the 'no smoking' signs in the grandstand which no one seems to pay attention to - that's when Northcote City Hercules should just fold.

'Pull your finger out' sweeps
Around about the 80th minute. Let's be honest, someone had to say it at some point.

Little lamb, you're lost in the great big world / Runaway, findin' streets so cold. 

Around the grounds
Before
There were a lot of goals in this game. It was 2-2 at the end of the regulation ninety, 3-3 at half time of extra time, and 4-3 to Northcote over North Geelong at the end of the game. I was entertained. I was bored. I was distracted. In other words, it was an above average game of football entertainment wise, which fluctuated wildly quality wise. The truth of the matter is that Northcote should have won this in regular time. They had the better chances and looked more conistently promising in attack. If they were more intent on playing the through ball early instead of watching a teammate stray offside, they wouldn't have needed the extra 30 minutes to make sure of things. As it was, North Geelong weren't bad, but they created less and relied on two free kicks - one well placed, one stunning - to keep them in the game. Eventually North Geelong ran out of gas and ran out of time.

After 
If nothing else, going to Olympic Village after our game proved that there is a such a thing as too much soccer. Heidelberg United vs Moreland Zebras - if not the chance for an upset, then perhaps at least the chance for a competitive game? Nope. Heidelberg controlled this game from beginning to end, and two goals in each half did the business for them. Crowd? Maybe 200 at a pinch, but not much more than that. Atmosphere? Flat as a tack, except for 10-20 Zebras fans who were more intent on blaming the ref than their own team for doing so badly; one chant of 'A-A-Lexandros' late in the game; and Heidelberg Harismidis running up and down the outer wing. All of which goes to show that, unless it's a marquee affair, the FFA Cup is hardly a panacea when it comes to resuscitating interest in the lower leagues. Still, like FFA and its friends in social media circles when they count the same participant three times for their participation metrics, my attendance at three games yesterday did its bit for artificial inflation of the metrics of spectator interest in Australian soccer.

Final thought
South of the Border was saddened to hear of the death during the week of Paul Henning, the father of SMFCTV host (and friend of ours) David Henning. It was always a pleasure of mine to have even the shortest of chats with Paul at a South game, whether the topic was footy, the vagaries and minutiae of teaching at a tertiary level, or even (gasp!) rugby union. My deepest condolences to 'Dubs' and all those close to Paul Henning.

Still seven points ahead - South Melbourne 4 Werribee City 0

This report was late due to a game of Pathfinder being played at my house (and in Singapore and London), and afterwards supposedly meeting people for coffee, neither of which I participated in directly; it's a long story.

The sun shines, but the rain falls down over Lakeside
prior to the under 20s match. Photo: Gains.

While watching the under 20s yesterday, I did have one eye on what was going at Oakleigh vs Pascoe Vale via Twitter, even as my phone battery rapidly declined. The 3-0 result to Oakleigh cut the margin between us back to four points, so as has been the case for most of the second half of the season, it was time for us to respond to whatever result Oakleigh threw up at us.

It was important though to also respond to the poor performance we put in midweek against Bentleigh, and Chris Taylor seemed to throw caution to the wind with some of his selections. Jamie Reed coming in for Leigh Minopoulos and Iqi Jawadi coming back from suspension for Matthew Theodore were kinda obvious; but the replacement of Jason Saldaris with Chris Maynard in goals was a daring move this late in the season.

Saldaris, who has recently been the recipient of a form of bronx chanting from Clarendon Corner, who have been applauding him for completing even regulation goalkeeper actions, seems to have finally lost the confidence of Taylor. Thus Maynard, who as far as I can remember has played just one match this season - the 4-1 Dockerty Cup win away to Berwick City - was starting his first league game in quite some time.

Would he be as alert as a keeper who'd played week in, week out? Would he stuff up his long awaited chance at the no. 1 spot? We'll have to wait at least another week for the answer to those questions, because he had very little to do in this match, as Werribee struggled to even get one shot on target during the game. While this made it easier for us on the day, it also had the effect of making me doubt that they could get a point against Oakleigh in the next round. And while those who say our destiny is in our hands are correct - three wins from our four remaining games will seal the title - it wouldn't hurt our cause if Oakleigh dropped some points along the way.

South came out of blocks looking pretty fired up creating, several chances and breaking apart Werribee's defence if not quite at will, then relatively comfortably, but in echoes of the midweek game there had been no goal in the opening half hour and my thoughts started to head towards the possibility of Werribee pinching a goal from somewhere. That turned out not to be the case however. First Reed scored from a penalty just after half an hour, after Nick Epifano had been felled, then Milos Lujic scored twice just before halftime as the visitors' defence crumbled. The game was as good as over.

A white curtain of rain pours down on Lakeside during the
second half of the senior match. Photo: Gains.

That we could only manage the one goal after halftime (by Epifano) was disappointing, because it just may come down to goal difference at the end of the campaign, and this was as good a chance as any to start closing the gap to Oakleigh's superior goal difference. Every little bit counts.

The crowd at the game was also poor, which can partly be blamed on the weather, but I think is also due to the late kickoff time. Where once I had no specific preference for one kickoff time over another on a Sunday, I'm kinda getting over the 5:00pm starts. Is it the general malaise affecting crowds across the board in the NPL, and even state leagues games (the Eastern Lions - Mornington game [see below] also got a lower attendance than I had anticipated)? Whatever the cause of the low attendance - and it's not like I'm expecting miraculous attendances ten years after the end of our NSL heyday - it's disappointing that we can't pull a few more people to games now that we're actually doing half well. It also means dinner gets eaten much later than I'd like now that I'm almost halfway to being a senior citizen, but it also means that I miss out on listening to one of our club representatives on 3XY, especially now that we're all friends again.

So, after all that, still seven points clear. Four games to go for us, five games to go for Oakleigh.

Next game
Dandenong Thunder away on Saturday night. After a good start to the season they've fallen down towards the bottom end of ladder, but they did manage to win away at Ballarat on the weekend to all but make sure they'll avoid relegation. Alan Kearney got red carded in that game though, so that will be a useful out as far as we're concerned, unless his replacement comes in plays a blinder.

Did you know?
That under 20s defender Sammy Kagioglou is apparently the grandson of 1960s championship goalkeeper Sam Kagioglou? That's pretty cool.

Looking forward to the final round
It's still over a month away, but people are already starting to look forward to our final round match against Goulburn Valley Suns in Shepparton, still very much a potential title decider. In particular, people are thinking about travel arrangements. Since the trains are a manifestly inconvenient option for this game, I've asked the club about whether they'll organise a bus - their initial response is that they're not sure at this stage, but will inform everyone closer to the date of any arrangements.

I am so precious, it hurts
At the Bentleigh game the other day, I had it out (in typically mild fashion) with the person behind the @smfcmike Twitter account, initially asking him to just ease off the caps lock as a starting point. I even half joked that I was *this* close to blocking him. But that's why they call it a half joke, because I actually followed through with it. It's meant that some Twitter discussions I follow are now distorted, but it's a price I'm willing to to pay for a little bit more sanity.

The actor leaves the stage, but the play continues
It's weird seeing Shoot Farken still going after my involvement. How can this be? What I mean to say is, that despite the Heavy Sleep world cup articles I'd written for them, I forgot to add their link on the side panel. So, there it is now. At the moment they're looking at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

Around the grounds
Junk Dilemmas Round 22 (with apologies to Irvine Welsh)
I could sit at home and do nothing, just like most of the Friday nights of my life. Or, like the addict who can't stay away from their one vice, I could go to a lower league soccer match, again. The choice tonight is between Richmond hosting Avondale Heights, or going to Port and watching them take on the Knights. Informed by an irrational hatred of Avondale Heights, I choose the latter. The universe tries to conspire against me getting to the game on time. The parking at Newport station is packed, so I end up parking some distance away. The train I want to catch is delayed because of a VLine train. The myki gate at Flinders Street station reckons I haven't touched on, but there's no staff member at the Elizabeth St exit to help me exit the gate, and my lack of athletic ability and my acquiescence to effects of the implied panopticon prevents me from jumping the gate. After I circle around and exit via the platform 1 exit, I walk past the Elizabeth Street exit towards Banana Alley, and notice that the fat woman I saw walking up the stairs as I began doubling back was actually a staff member. Her black uniform, which I afterwards described thusly,

Good choice by @metrotrains to dress their staff in black, makes it easy to distinguish them from the 1% of Melburnians who don't wear black
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) August 8, 2014

and her lack of urgency in climbing the stairs fools me into thinking that she's merely another pleb public transport user. Still, when everything else can go wrong, you can trust Port Melbourne's gate attendant crew to provide speedy and fuss free entrance to the venue for those like myself who possess the appropriate paperwork. The game itself is a bore. The most exciting to happen is watching a couple of blokes from MCF attempt to punch on with each other, with their mates in the middle copping collateral damage as they try to separate the pair. Security try to calm the situation, and it seems to do the trick. There are many possible lessons to take out of this situation. One is the slightly coarse, 'talk shit, get hit'. Another lesson might well be that if you keep pushing someone's buttons, they may eventually snap. Perhaps don't be involved in spreading pernicious rumours, which is all well and good except for the fact that I was doing much the same yesterday. Many other observations were also made about contemporary young male Croatian-Australian social identity, but I haven't gone through the Victoria University ethics department to get clearance for any of that. Knights won the game 1-0. The bus goes past five minutes earlier since the timetable reformat, so I miss it, and I get home at midnight instead of 11:30.

Burwood or Balwyn or Bentleigh or Boronia
Several weeks ago I agreed to go to Eastern Lions vs Mornington with Ian Syson, in anticipation that these two sides would be first first and second on the State League 1 South-East table. That's the way they came into this game, with the Lions being four points clear at the top. First time out at Gardiners Creek Reserve, and it's a nice set up with several grounds and nice seating in the shed, but they must have one of the largest budgets for match balls in the state with the creek being so close by. Now it must be noted that I was in a surly sort of mood, (though to be fair, I've been in a surly sort of mood for a while now), and I was therefore determined not to enjoy this game. The first half helped in that in ragard, in that it failed to live up to expectation with few if any chances, let alone quality passages of play. The visitors, who had edged proceedings in the opening 45 minutes, managed to jag a goal late to take lead at halftime. I got to meet Steven Gray of Football Chaos fame during the break, though of course he had to rush off to film the second half. The second half saw the Lions equalise early, though not without some controversy, with there being uncertainty about whether the ball had crossed the line. The game then continued in much the same way as the first half, but eventually Mornington got on top with the Lions barely being able to get out of their own half of the field - including from goalkicks - though it was almost all half chances. Then shock of shocks, the Lions managed to score a late winner - after having played for the draw, they managed to get the win. These things happen.

Final thought
A fellow supporter and I agreed yesterday that Law and Order: Special Victims Unit has completely gone down the toilet. I don't care about the detectives' personal lives, just give me 35 implausible twists, more 'can you enhance that' moments than you can poke a stick at, and the usual cavalcade of sickos that get their comeuppance while I shake my fist at the TV.