Hellas get the win - South Hobart 0 South Melbourne 1

Maybe it was due to my crook eye, all puffed up and sore - though I prefer to think that it was because of sense of anticipation of the day ahead - I woke up several times in the middle of the night, and upon waking up, proceeded to head to Spencer Street Station even earlier than I had planned, ending up waiting for Gains outside the Bourke Street Hungry Jack's next to some crazy motherfucker with a Balkan accent, who was going off at some taxi driver as Port Adelaide Power supporters trickled into town for their team's preliminary final.

By the time I got to Tullamarine, those South fans due to depart on earlier flights had gone, but there were still plenty of us waiting for the 9:45 flight. The guy at the screening area asked me to take my beanie off, but otherwise there were no issues clearing that barrier, other than him mistaking us for North Melbourne fans.

The flight itself was rather dull, as cloud cover blocked out most of what was worth looking at, and besides, I was in the middle seat and having to look past a sleeping woman's head to see outside the window. I amused myself with the in-flight magazine, and suffered an OCD moment when I had to ask Gains for a pen so I could complete the unfinished crossword. I can understand maybe missing out on Isaac ASIMOV, because you don't know science fiction or the three laws of robotics. I can even understand missing out on Margaret POMERANZ, because you don't know how to spell her surname. But missing out on the name of AC/DC's second album, when the answer's only three letters long and already has the 'N' in the middle filled in?

Upon landing, it's straight from the airport to the pub around the corner from the Darcy Street ground, a trip made cheaper by the fact that someone had planned ahead and hired a maxi cab, so give that bloke a medal. The Hellas faithful had already commandeered the Cascade Hotel's beer garden, the banners up along the fence, and the chanting in full swing. There was even a chant for my arrival, and one for the super beef schnitzel on the menu. I also got to catch up with former South Hobart players Shae Hickey and Dan Brown, as well as local soccer journo Callan Paske, who thanked me for doing up the Hellas write up for Walter Pless' site because it helped. If only I'd bothered doing as much research on South Hobart, my readers would have known what to look out for.

Now last week I had a go at Brad Norton and our taking of short corners, to which one of our readers, Neil, left a comment on the general uselessness of corners, short or long. While an interesting study, I think it still more or less supports my position from last week, which is not that I believe that we will score from any given corner ipso facto, but that the act of getting the ball into a dangerous position, with the possibility of either scoring or at least regaining possession from a defensive clearance - as opposed to hitting it into the first defender on the edge of the box after a botched short corner - is a better option.

That the article in question says that short corners should be considered because of the greater chance of maintaining possession, is not applicable in the case of South Melbourne as we have come to know and love them, because we have not used short corners as a way of maintaining possession - rather, we have used them as a means of supposedly opening up an angle and/or drawing out defenders towards the ball and away from their own goal area in preparation from an a semi-delayed cross. The problem here is that we either fuck up the initial short pass from the corner, fuck up the pass back to the corner taker, or if we somehow manage not to cock up those two passes, we cock up the cross that's meant to come from that contrived trickery.

On a related matter, when people ask me do people from the club read this blog, here's the proof of the pudding. While waiting at Hobart's airport to go back to Melbourne, our lovable larrikin president Leo Athanasakis pulled me up to have a bit of chat about one particular event of this game, which happened very early on in the piece. Brad Norton had taken an early corner, sent it deep, and saw the South Hobart defence at sixes and sevens trying to deal with it. The subsequent corner, which followed immediately on from the first one, was played short and sunk without a trace. The president felt inclined to point out to me that when that happened, he looked towards my direction to see my reaction of utter disbelief.

Anyway, before the game, the one thing that I was worried most about - apart from Brayden Mann and Andy Brennan up front for South Hobart - was whether we would take the home team seriously, and not rock up thinking that a Hellas win would be a fait accompli. Thankfully we started off like a house on fire, and duly opened the scoring off a Jamie Reed overhead kick.

Note to all South Melbourne players: that goal came from a corner sent deep, which caused all sorts of mayhem. You know, like the first one we put in. What's that line that Dr 'not registered in California - this show is for entertainment, informational or educational purposes only' Phil likes to say? That the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour? And what was it that old drunk WC Fields is alleged to have said? If at first you don't succeed, try, try again? Then quit - no use being a damn fool about it.

Walter Pless' brilliant photo, capturing the moment after Jamied Reed connected with his
 overhead kick, but before it sailed past South Hobart goalkeeper Kane Pierce.

At that point I thought, here we go, but then for whatever reason things started to go a bit pear shaped. South Hobart starting winning more of the ball, but the biggest problem was that the complacency I thought we'd left back at the hotel had turned up, and we started doing things that we pretty much hadn't done all season. We spent so much time knocking the ball around, which would have been OK had we actually done it properly, and were we not playing a pitch with a wicked slant down which made what would have been normal passes into a variation of trick pool, such was the swerve and spin that was on display.

It didn't help that some of our players had all of a sudden discovered their inner Garrincha and tried to dribble through and around everyone. James Musa in particular seemed to become manifest as a reincarnated Steven Topalovic, which is strange because Topa's not dead yet. And while often enough the skills our players were looking to pull off actually managed to be completed, too often it was just looking for trouble.

Should South Hobart have had a penalty? I don't know. Unlike other crucial moments in the game, I haven't gone and looked back on the video. I'm going to stick with 'no', just for the sake of it. Regardless, we managed to go into the break 1-0 up, and came out looking better in the second half. Sure, there were still mistakes being made, and openings there for South Hobart, but if they're going to blaze their shots wildly into the backyards behind the goals, whose fault is that?

Steve Hatzikostas' knee injury was a concern, though apparently he's been cleared of serious damage - whether he'll play in the next game though is doubtful. Had he not gone off, I would have taken Iqi Jawadi off, who unfortunately had an awful game. As it was, the bloke I would have replaced Iqi with, Tyson Holmes, came on and did an OK job.

The critical moment of the second half was when Lujic, having been released into space and having also beaten the offside trap, went to go around Pierce on the edge of the box, only to be clattered into cynically by the South Hobart keeper. Somehow Pierce escaped with only a yellow card for his efforts. Looking at the video, I'm still mot quite sure how he managed to escape a red. Still, we ground out the result despite putting in ordinary performance.

I'd said in my preview for Walter Pless' blog that our vulnerabilities were in our lack of pace at the back, and in our tendency to be a grinding out team suited to league rather than cup or playoff successes. On the latter front, our unconvincing Dockerty Cup wins at Sunshine George Cross and Dandenong Thunder seemed to suggest that when it comes to one off games, as the team likely to go into them as favourite, opposition teams see us as a likely scalp. Certainly, I think South Hobart lifted and perhaps played at a level they perhaps wouldn't be able to sustain over the course of an entire NPL Victoria season, if they were involved in such a thing. All these things are hypotheticals of course, but that's the nature of knockout football, and something we have to deal with.

I can't say much for most of the team, who battled hard, but put together a very disjointed performance, one of our worst this season. Too often our defenders were exposed by the speed of the opposition forwards and our own poor decision making further up the field which gifted them the ball back. Milos Lujic was relatively starved of chances, though he could have done better with those that he had - credit to Kane Pierce for making some good saves. Jamie Reed held the ball up well and caused a lot of problems for his direct opponents.

However the man of the match was our skipper Michael Eagar, who when everyone else was still trying to find their bearings, sorted out the danger time and time again. Added to that, despite whatever looks on goal South Hobart managed to eke out, they barely if ever (Walter Pless counted one) forced Chris Maynard into making a save - a point I made when speaking briefly with South Hobart coach Ken Morton after the match, who rued his side's inability to take their chances.

How can you have a trip to Hobart without a visit to the Hellenic Club? 
Because apparently they were hosting a wedding reception instead. Now that I think about it, we probably should have crashed that party. Instead a few of us ended up back at the pub, and I ended up drinking with Joe Gorman, Australia's second best soccer writer, discussing Leopold Method's upcoming print edition, the Macedonian issue, Ian Syson's romanticism, my bitterness, and how Joe had never picked up on Kimon Taliadoros' South African accent.

Meanwhile those of us South fans at the pub had more or less resigned ourselves to playing either Western Australia's Bayswater or South Australia's MetroStars away. An expensive trip on short notice to Perth, or a cheaper, easier one to Adelaide - and sure I've got a mate in Perth who's offered to put me up should I ever end up on that side of the country, but it's not worth it for a fly in fly out deal. Making matters worse, we'd arguably been dealt the easier part of the deal - go to the weaker opponent, score three or four goals, don't do anything stupid. Well, the stupidity was limited to James Musa's yellow card for a rash challenge, and we managed to win in regular time, but the lone goal meant that in likelihood we'd have to travel.

What could have been had Pierce been sent off? Or had Lujic managed to find the back of the net instead of the cross bar? Bayswater got a man sent off early, and as that game dragged out into extra time, and then penalties, it turned out to be MetroStars, and what's more we'd play them at home. Sometimes things fall into place, even when you try hard to screw it up.

Next game
South Australia's North Eastern MetroStars (what a terrible name) at Lakeside. Date and time to be confirmed. The Transplant Games are apparently on Sunday from 7am to 3pm - does that allow us to have our game afterwards? Would we dare to host the game on a Saturday night? Is Friday night even a possibility?

Former South players Scott Tunbridge and Adam Van Dommele to return to Lakeside. This world just gets a little crazier.

Update
This Sunday at 3:00pm, at Lakeside.


The view from the other side
Some fascinating reading over on Walter's initial summing up of the game, mostly in the comments section. It's all over the shop to be honest, as the occasional Hellas fan chimed in with positive words, surrounded by those locals talking up South Hobart's performance and talking it up, those inexplicably (to my mind) talking us up, and the internal conflict between supporting an interstate interloper over a local team, and whether such brotherhoods as may exist in the case of one Greek Australian club and another can supersede those state loyalties, whether that shouldn't even matter, because South Hobart represent themselves first and their state second, and is the nature of such things, a lot of coulda, woulda, shoulda.

The best local view of the game, at least in terms of matching whatever biases may exist in this blog, is from Richard's Rant Blog. Passionate, provocative, but not without praise when he feels it's due - though a lot of that praise seems to be reserved for the supporters who made the trip down for providing a rambunctious atmosphere. Considering the flak South fans cop on occasion for supporting their team a bit more vigorously than a lot of the smaller clubs here in Melbourne, it's a nice bit of respite from the hate - though I suppose it's easier to appreciate what we do when the chants about inbreds were quickly howled down, and instead replaced with 'Scenic ground, some fans'.

Baby take off your dress/Self-diagnosis spectacular
I would have thought that wearing a Shoot Farken t-shirt would have had me singled out immediately, but it was the overly precious metal detectors at Hobart airport that kept pushing me back, rather than whatever stray coins I thought my have been left in my pocket, and thus off came the belt.  It also turns out I probably suffer from airplane sinus headaches or some such affliction, a stabbing, jabbing pain over one side of temple. Makes flying a less than pleasant experience. At least we the Hobart flight left early, and the SkyBus and train connections synched up beautifully.

Final thought
Shaun Kelly buys Nesquik cereal. Make of that what you will.

Hobart Trip 2011 - Long way to go for all concerned

This article will be purely about the football. For an article about the more touristy stuff and Hobart's eccentricities - and its eccentrics - there'll be something in another article about that.

Hobart Olympia 0 - South Melbourne 9

Our first match was against Hobart Olympia, at the Federation's home of KGV Park. It's an adequate set up - a small stand, beautiful surface, and pretty poor lighting that wasn't really needed for an evening game in the height of summer. After decades of wandering aimlessly from ground to ground, Olympia are busy building a new facility, in an attempt to stamp themselves on a locality and find a means to attract and keep the junior talent that exists in the Hobart area.

It fits into their plan to develop their own young players - an overall plan 20 years too late perhaps, but when you're left with no option after years of neglect, you might as well start from a position of humility and work your way up. It's apparently not necessarily a popular or unanimous decision amongst the Olympia faithful to go back to the drawing board and rely on youth, but the top brass there seem prepared at this early stage to stick out and see if it works.

To that end, in only their second match of their pre-season one could forgive a bit of rustiness from the hosts. Both sides fielded young sides - only two or three first choice players took the field in the first half for Hellas - the rest of the team being youngsters from the under 21s and below. Likewise for Olympia, a lot of young and inexperienced players. It''s worth remembering also that our under 21s won the VPL title last season, finishing streets ahead of the field.

With all that in mind, they made perhaps the unusual and gutsy decision to try and stand toe to toe against their more fancied opponents. They were competitive enough in the first half, winning a few corners and sending in a few crosses, and they also managed to put in a few good tackles, but the gulf in class was obvious for all to see. The South boys played the ball from the back, with quick short passes and tended to hold the ball until the right moment presented itself.

We were up 2-0 at halftime, courtesy of a double to the hitherto unknown - even to his teammates - Nicky Jacobs. His first goal was delightful, a delicate chip over the top of the keeper that floated into goal. The football department think he's a work in progress, and it's hard to gauge how good he really is against such poor opposition. James Riccobene also impressed - his decision making seems good, and he can put in a half decent corner as well.

The second half started off well for South, as Nicky Jacobs got his hattrick early on in the piece. From there on, the home side more or less disintegrates. While admittedly more senior players were brought over the course of the second half, and the home side tried various formations and players, there was an ineptitude that was troubling. Both of Olympia's goalkeepers could not accurately kick the ball, nor gain much distance. Rather kicking the ball long from defence from goalkicks, they attempted to play the ball out from the back with disastrous results.

Football is a possession game, but it's also a territorial game, and where the ball is located at any given moment is just as important. For a team seemingly destined to struggle at least in the short term, would it have been worthwhile to attempt to play conservatively? Would the players have learned anything from such an approach? I'm not sure. As it is, the Olympia coach suggested that at least one cause of the heavy defeat - it finished 9-0, with Jesse Krncevic bagging five goals in his 28 minutes on the ground - was due to a lack of ticker.

Now actually giving a stuff about the game you're playing is important, but singling that out - regardless of the fact that as far as I could tell, the Olympia boys did have a red hot go for the majority of the game - seems so anachronistic that one wonders what kind of hope there is for the players. To use a famous example from another sport:

While commentating during a match in which Pakistan was faring badly in all departments of the game, Bill Lawry, offering a solution said "I think Pakistan's problem is they've got to relax", to which Benaud replies nonchalantly, "I don't agree. I think Pakistan have got to learn how to bat, bowl and field. It's a simple game."

Meanwhile, South's assistant coach Joe Montemurro spent a great deal of time talking to his substitutes, giving them what appeared to be quite detailed instructions. Now this may just be me taking something of out of context and blowing it completely out of proportion, but it was a comment that stood out above all the others. For their part, the people watching the game appeared to be realistic about where the two sides and indeed the overall depth and quality of football between the two states, were at in relation to each other.

At the end of the game, Leo Athanasakis jumped the gun and said we'd be back next year to play them again, in all likelihood without consulting anyone else. If that is to be the case, it'll be interesting to see what difference a year would make. Having seen Olympia struggle in our Hellenic Cup a few years ago, I'm wary of how much improvement there might be - here's hoping though that they follow through on their plan to blood the young players and not flinch at the first sign of danger or failure.


South Hobart 0 - South Melbourne 5
The ground at Darcy Street is gorgeous - two stands side by side, spanning the length of the field, a perfect pitch, and on the other side, the mountains in full view. A good crowd of 700 turned up for the match, which was both tighter and of  a higher quality than the Friday game - Hellas fielded many more of its senior players right from the start, and South Hobart have been the dominant team in Hobart for the past few seasons - last season they did not lose a single game, and won the senior, reserve and under 19 competitions.

South Hobart's success (which has bucked the trend of their rather mediocre post-war history) has not been without its share of cynicism and controversy. Their coach is Ken Morton, the former NSL coach, who also sponsors the club via his private soccer academy, and whose partner happens to be the president of the club. While some locals have lauded the increased professionalism and style of play brought about by South Hobart in recent years, equally there are detractors who are waiting for the day when Morton leaves (for whatever reason) and the whole system falls apart.

While South Hobart put in a performance at several levels above that of Olympia, and should have scored at least a couple of goals, it's fair to say that once again the gulf in class was significant, especially considering that Hellas was far from its best. While missing three of our more skillful players in Joe Keenan, usual frontman Gianni De Nittis, captain and defender Ramazan Tavsancioglou and new recruit Yianni Galanos, we were still able to create several good chances at goal.

The home side's pressure did lead to several mistakes being made in defense however, and that will be of some concern - and playing the ball out of the back will not be so easy against better opposition and on fields of far inferior quality. It was good to see Kyle Joryeff play up front in both matches. His reputation as a 'downhill skier' won't have been helped by the opposition he faced, but he showed that he is a classy finisher, and that his close control is amongst the best in the side. I've been of the opinion for a while that the only position he could play is upfront - his lack of defensive mettle rules him out from playing on the wings.

Both Stefaan Sardelic and Zain Zenali had stints in the keeper's position. Sardelic was forced to scurry across goal to deal with several loose back passes, and his dealing with them wasn't always convincing. Neither was his field kicking, but his distribution by hand and most of his aerial work were very good. Zenali had less to do in the second half, and was penalised somewhat harshly for picking up a backpass that appeared to clearly to be the result of the South Hobart player being dispossessed.

Seb Petrovich, after being overlooked so much last season after having won our best and fairest in 2009, did reasonably well on a wing. He has grit and skill, but he lacks that bit of pace that would make him a threat in that position - he is far better suited to his usual central midfield role. Steven Topalovic at right back did some excellent and awful things. He gave away the ball in several dangerous situations, particularly in the first half, and looked a little lost with players running at him. On the other hand, he easily won several tests of strength when fighting for the ball, and could be a useful and intimidating physical force if played more centrally.

In the VPL, Hellas is not considered one of the more physical sides, and yet we were able to win most of the 50/50 balls and moments when physical strength were needed most, which only served to further emphasise the gulf in skill. For their part, South Hobart tried to keep the ball on the ground, and their effectiveness was hampered by several injuries during the course of the match, but there would still be little doubt that there is a long way to go for both South Hobart and Tasmanian football to catch up to even the lesser mainland states.


Some naive observations

Their isolation from the rest of Australian soccer, coupled with the internal divisions - despite several attempts at a unified state league, the north and south of the state still seem to conduct separate competitions - and the lack of funds from councils from improved facilities, the general apathy of the local public towards senior soccer, means that the game there will always have several obstacles to overcome. And while lopsided results against touring sides may reinforce their inferiority, we can't let Tasmanian soccer remain in isolation.

The more open-minded supporters certainly see it as an opportunity to showcase both the game's qualities as a spectacle, as well as a chance to show where improvement can be made and how much of it is needed to start bridging the gap. Whether the game there can find the unity of cause to stem the decline of standards both on field and off, is something that remains to be seen. Otherwise, Tasmanian soccer may very well end up like football in Mildura - effectively a place for a social kickabout, unable to retain juniors into their adult squads or even within the greater sphere of the game as a volunteer or spectator. The Melbourne Knights are heading down there this week to play the Glenorchy Knights. Short tours like this, especially by Victorian teams, are the bare minimum required to keep Tasmania connected to the rest of Australian soccer family.