Top of the league with low expectations - Dandenong City 1 South Melbourne 1

Before I wrote the previous post, I assumed that I wasn't going to be at this game, but through the magic of the South of the Border audience, there I was at Frank Holohan Soccer Complex, eating a raznjice roll instead of a pork belly roll (because Gains apparently got the last one), and drinking a non-zero sugar CC & Dry. What a magical evening this was already, and then it was ruined, absolutely ruined, by the muddling team selection. 

With a nearly a full week between the St Albans game and this one, and over a week between this game and the next one against Hume, I could not, and cannot for the life of me understand why Esteban Quintas chose to once again rotate the squad Mickey Arthur style. Pick the best damn attacking options and get on with it. My lord, it is so frustrating to watch this team knowing that if its optimal attacking set up was unleashed, it would be in a much better position not just to win games, but to also win them well.

I'm sure Quintas has his reasons. Freddie Sey got a start instead of Gerrie Sylaidos or Zac Bates, and on five minutes should have had a goal, or at least a shot on target. Instead he hit Henry Hore's cut back in such a messed up way, that even watching it half a dozen (and them some) times on replay, I can't figure out what Sey was trying to do. It looks like he hit the ball with both feet at once, but even thinking about the mechanics of that just make me dizzy.

Anyway, these things apparently happen. But despite controlling the early part of the game, having not taken the lead from a great early chance early mean that City could afford to continue to play the game on its terms, in the sense that they were built for rapid counter attacks and making the most of mistakes in the middle. Since we were carrying the ball up field and committing numbers forward to do so, and since the pitch - by far the bumpiest I've seen this season - made ball control in the middle of the park difficult.

And despite being bottom of the table, City were hardly terrible. Certainly they looked more likely than St Albans. To wit - they opened the scoring thanks to a new recruit, secured with a transfer system loophole, a great finish even if our friend did have too much space on the edge of the box. On first glance it looks like Ben Djiba gets turned inside out, but the replay suggests that he's effectively being asked to mark three opponents while some of his midfield teammates are ball watching.

Some may say that wouldn't have happened under, say, Melvin Becket's watch, but that's a story for another day. Second half, a couple of attacking substitutions, and there we were, hunting for the equaliser in a game that had gone from messy and tolerable in a "I'm watching an NPL match, so I need to remind myself not to expect too much" way, to helter skelter, up and down, attack and counter attack, being on the edge of your seat wondering if the next gial would be ours or theirs.

As it turned out, the next - and only - goal was ours. Henry Hore with another cute assist, though Daniel Clark had some work to do to turn on his right and toe-bash the ball into the back of the net. Former South man Gavin De Niese, who was marking Clark, would probably be disappointed with himself for being so far off Clark when the latter got the ball. Either side of the equaliser City's goalkeeper pulled off any number of good saves, though he was also helped by the post after he cocked up one sequence, and also helped by us stuffing up a three on one opportunity.

  

There's a part of me that can't decide if we thought this game would be easier than it turned out, or if we gave too much credit to the home team. Either way, it was two points dropped for us, and being top of the league playing bottom, there's no way of getting around that. While there are no guarantees in any match, logically a team such as ours, on top of the table after eight games - even if we're not quite sure how we did that - should be winning these games, especially with the quantity of chances we created,

Still, after the game ended there followed the applause of much of the crowd, for I assume (I hope) both teams, who put together a very entertaining second half. And then some argle-bargle happened down near the players race, which kinda took the edge of the feelings of good sportsmanship and appreciation of a good game of football. At least we didn't cop anyone giving us a Nazi salute this time, so that's a plus.

Next game

Hume City at home on Saturday afternoon. Prior to the senior game I believe the annual Tony Clarke Memorial Shield game will take place. The under 21s will be playing after the senior game.

I'm not expecting a big crowd up against all those state league fixtures, and on Orthodox Easter Saturday to boot. Even I won't be there, as I will be in Wollongong for a friend's wedding.

So if you want to write up this week's match report, send me a line, because chances are I won't even get to watch this game on delay.

Now it's official

Our cup game against Knights is on Tuesday May 4th, 7:30PM at Lakeside. South memberships won't get you into this game, but tickets are only $10.

I did not expect that

Last night on a whim, I decided to head out and catch our senior women in action at Lakeside against FV Emerging, because that's how much I love Monday night football. Considering the spanking our women gave Bulleen in round 1, and how even an at times half-arsed performance in round 2 gave us a win over Calder, I was expecting good enough things for round 3. Big mistake. I'd heard that the Emerging program (re-badged from whatever its previous name was) has been looking good this season, but I didn't expect it to be this good. I'm told they train four times a week, getting up at six in the morning, and have the odd over-age player, but notwithstanding any of that, they looked damn good. Scary good. They made our team look second rate. We couldn't get the ball; and when we did get the ball, we couldn't do anything with it; and when we did do something with it, it was hardly spectacular. I don't think we had a shot on target all night. And despite one cock-up, if not for Melissa Barbieri in goal, we wouldn't have only lost 5-0.

It wasn't down to fitness, or the individual physical qualities of players such as speed or strength. It was down to the quality of the teamwork from Emerging - their passing and movement a real cut above almost anything I've seen in local women's soccer. Much to think about for our women's team then, and much to think also I assume for any opponent of FV Emerging.

Promotion and relegation chat

I don't normally do this, but on the Australian soccer history podcast that I co-host, we recently had a chat with Australian soccer statistician Andrew Howe about the way promotion and relegation worked in the National Soccer League. Might be worth tuning in just in case you ever wanted to weigh in on the topic on social media.

Live streaming

First you get the streaming; then you get the gambling; then you get the women

Saturday afternoon, and I could not be arsed driving to Paisley Park. I also could not be arsed walking to Ralph Reserve. Decided instead to sit on the couch, fire up the Xbox, and watch some streaming matches on YouTube. Congratulations to all the streaming service advocates, you've won. I was flipping across multiple games, with no loyalty to any one contest. Devonport vs Olympia held my interest for as long the underdog Olympia were leading 2-1. Then when Devonport equalised, that was it for me. Bergers vs Port? Flat sounding commentary and no crowd ambience meant that the game didn't hold much interest, and it looked like the Bergers were in control anyway. The choice then was to flick back and forth between the Avondale-Thunder, and Preston-North Sunshine games. North Sunshine had four ex-South players in its lineup - Mala, Epifano, Zeneli, and Budimir - and the game had its share of tension and a big time feel. And the game at the Reggio Calabria had Avondale trying to win to close the gap to us... and yet I wasn't able to fully commit to the story of either game. It all came across as so frivolous, having all that choice. Richey Edwards had a line about that in a song the Manics completed years after Richey's mysterious disappearance, but that's really only of interest to exactly one person reading this: me.

Final thought

Thanks to Paul C. for giving me and Gains a lift to and from the ground - it was very much appreciated!

And you may ask yourself: Well... how did I get here? South Melbourne 2 St Albans 0

This game was so easy that it just might make you re-evaluate everything you think you know about soccer. Or perhaps not. 

Just before our game started we were equal on points with Avondale, with the same goal difference, but second overall on the ladder because we'd scored fewer goals. Immediately after kickoff we were top of the league, at least according to the live ladder ("we're top of the league / we're top of the league / check the live ladder / we're top of the league"), and after 90 minutes of play, we were top of the league outright for real, still.

How did this happen? Arguments about the general mediocrity and/or evenness of this league will only take you so far in finding the answer, because even being in an even league, why is it us that's on top? I suppose it helps that we haven't yet played Avondale, Knights, or Bentleigh, but even so... why us? What have we done that's been so remarkable to see us in this position?

We are a hard working team, but surely we're not only the one of those. We appear to be defensively sound in a way that's certainly surprised me, even taking into account Esteban Quintas' penchant for having his team sit back. But we throw up all manner of starting eleven combinations, not all of which (or even most) our very knowledgeable fans would consider our best and likely most effective starting lineup.

But even taking into account that St Albans racked up quite a few corners, they generally sucked. Sure, they had that one shot cleared off the line when they were already 2-0 down, but that was pretty much their contribution to the day. The two goals we scored, while pleasing to us, on further re-watching reveal a pitifully slow response time from the visiting side. Jake Marshall being unmarked at the near post, as the ball was headed back across goal from the far post from a corner? I'll cut them some slack for that one.

But the second goal? It was hardly searing play from us. Neat movement and passing, but nothing obviously devastating. And Gerrie Sylaidos' gently lofted cross to Harry Sawyer? That was pure futsal/indoor/beach soccer shenanigans. Someone in the crowd asked when was the last time we scored from two headers in a game, it being the kind of question which is being asked nowadays because we are unexpectedly not terrible (maybe even "good"). As usual, the answer seems to be not as far back in the distant past as people like to instinctively think, but rather early last year.

My main concern now, in the event that we don't have a mid-season stumble, is that this season will be our own version of The Producers; in that we have gone to the trouble of selecting players and a coach that we thought would not succeed, but which instead will be so successful that it'll send us broke.

The following segment is not a part of Hume's social media antics complaining about the state of refereeing

Aside from the goals and generally non-objectionable play from us, there was one perplexing moment when Harry Sawyer was fouled, and the referee gave what we assumed was a penalty, what with Sawyer having fallen about two metres inside the box. But no, the foul was directed to be taken more or less just outside the penalty area. One can only assume that the referee thought that whatever infringement he thought he was adjudicating had begun outside the box, in which case it is remarkable that Sawyer (even with his height) only managed to come to ground so far inside the box that everyone just assumed that it was a penalty. 

But seeing as how we're all older and more tired, and top of the league and whatnot, no one seemed particularly fussed about the whole matter. It was a very mature response from our fans to the fairly confusing sequence of events, which just goes to show that the club is dead or some such. Where was the outrage? Where was the abuse? Where was me remembering to ask referees assessor Chris Bambridge after the game what that whole thing was all about?

Next game

Friday night away at Dandenong City. No idea how I'm supposed to get out there. Good chance of just watching this on the stream instead. A stranger reader of this blog has kindly offered me and a friend a lift to the ground. So, just in case said reader turns out to be an axe-murderer or some such, let me just say it has been a pleasure writing this blog, and that I've enjoyed hanging out with my South friends on the hills and terraces of Victorian soccer.

FFA Cup news

While nothing has been announced "officially", it appears as if our cup tie against Melbourne Knights has been scheduled for Tuesday May 4th, at 7:30PM, That would put it just three days after our Orthodox Easter Saturday league match against Hume, and three days before we play the Knights again in the league. Get ready for some serious squad rotation is all I'm going to say.

Pulling their finger out (when I'm not looking)

Before I even got to Lakeside - more specifically, while I was on the train on the way to the ground - I was streaming the opening half of the women's team match against their most likely title rival Calder United. We were up 1-0 by the time I tuned in, and I had to skim back to see the, as it turned out, quite lovely goal. We then proceeded to spend much of the rest of the first half being very slack with trying to win back possession, and playing many lazy, corner cutting long balls into space, instead of trying to carry the ball further up field. Infuriating play from a team you know can do better, and even more aggravating when they conceded the goal they should have conceded. South were lucky it was not more than one goal at half-time.

Now, to the second half... I was at the club by this stage, but the televisions in the social club were not broadcasting the women's game (that was only happening on the pro-shop's screen), and by the time that was rectified, our women were up 3-1 or something like that, and apparently kicking arse, eventually winning 3-2. Well, I'm glad for the fact that they picked up their game in the second half, even if I didn't get to see the magic happen until afterward on replay. 

They'll say you'll miss it when it's gone, but what if you won't?

The St Albans game was first of our seven scheduled Saturday home fixtures, and boy didn't it go down like a lead balloon in terms of attendance and fan engagement. There'll be a millions of excuses, ranging from the obvious and valid, to the abysmal and made-up. The bottom-line though is that the attendance figure, whatever it is officially, was poor, and the attempt to try for a Hume City style reverse fixture order in terms of putting on the 21s game second didn't work either, though it may have saved us a few bucks on hiring security and such.

To be fair, Saturday at 5:00PM is an unusual time, falling in between the final whistle of most state league fixtures and the usual Saturday evening NPL Victoria kickoff time of circa 7:00. And we may find that once we get to the point in the season where we actually play our own scheduled 7:00 Saturday night fixtures, that the crowds will sort themselves out, making the adjustment to something than our traditional Sunday afternoon/evening games. ate

One shudders to think how it all might have looked had we not been undefeated and top of the league. Certainly winning a game comfortably to main that maintain that undefeated run and top of the league status did nothing to keep people behind in the social club afterward. Everyone has their reasons for not sticking around of course, but it is a problem for the club if they don't.

I know what's waiting for me at our next home game.

The service was good, however...

One particular absent friend of ours was much better at food reviews than I am; his reviews had more heart for a start, and he had an off-the-cuff genius for these things that people like me can only dream of. But for the sake of documenting the experience in something approaching its totality, we plod on regardless. I had my first taste of the food in the social club on Saturday night, and all I'll say is don't pick the chicken schnitzel burger; go for the regular beef burger or the lamb sandwich equivalent, for which I have heard things ranging from "very good" to "it's fine". It's not that the schnitzel burger is inedible - it is very much edible, I ate it, and have suffered no deleterious side effects from doing so; but the "fun" beetroot coloured bun, above average salady bits, and the chipotle mayo can't completely disguise the fact that the chicken element of said chicken schnitzel burger is not up to scratch, what with it being a variation of every truck stop/school canteen/giant heart-shaped frozen crumbed schnitzel sitting in your local bakery's bain marie that, at best, you know and tolerate. I look forward to trying to some of the other items on the menu, and writing things about them.

Merch murmurs

I am hearing a pompom beanie with a new design is in the offing. Also, the Gunners t-shirt is on its way.

Final thought 

This is just a reminder that I owe the club the cost of the SM Hellas cap that I tried to buy after the pro-shop register was shutdown for the night, but which I was allowed to keep for the time being because people apparently trust me enough to follow through with payment eventually. 

For now, just shut up and enjoy the ride - Green Gully 0 South Melbourne 1

Marching bands, match programs, and a grassy hill that's deteriorating into dirt. These are some of the reasons why you should turn up to away games, instead of sulking at home. I mean, sure, if you have something better to do, you should do that, and more power to you. But watching your team from home when you have the option to go to a game? That's just madness. If one of the supposed (accidental) advantages of not being in A-League is the fact that you can see your team in person every week, why not take up that opportunity?

That's for those people to deal with. On Friday night it had not crossed my mind that with an 8pm kickoff, that there wouldn't be a reserves game. So here's me and Gains making a terrific argument for the experience of turning up to games in person, by getting to Green Gully Reserve about an hour and a half before the game, to find the entrance to the ground locked. What to do, other then try and find the alternative entrance to Gully's social club and bistro, which meant wandering around many doors trying to find the right one, before figuring out that it must the be the entry with the people smoking.

Oh, and how wonderful to be forced to go through the gaming area in order to get to the bistro. I'm sure such an arrangement is down to trying to minimise the amount of entry and exit points due to pandemic protocols; but how convenient that they didn't open the main doors which give you the option of not passing through the gaming room.

Anyway, eventually they did open the gates to the ground, and we were greeted by sprinklers on the field for some reason - because it wasn't like it hadn't already rained in the western suburbs earlier that day. But also, there was a marching band, that wasn't really marching so much as standing most of the time, parked next to Gully's covered shed thing, blasting out the tunes like it was 1885 and the Kaiser was due in town.

Some people on Twitter may have come across my recent footy posting about the music at AFL matches; this was not quite in that level of annoying, as well as my gripes over the selection of music at South games; but at least it was a band and not a recording, and at least they were playing full length songs, even if their repertoire was short. But damn it if there just wasn't anywhere to get away from it without leaving the vicinity of the western side where the food/toilets/drinks/etc were.

It was bloody loud is what I'm trying to say. Hard to hear oneself think, and you know I was missing out on some golden thoughts because of the noise, and even worse, finding it difficult to relay those thoughts to people in my vicinity, who were all desperate for my wisdom. On the plus side, credit to Gully for being one of the few clubs persisting with a (free!) match program, which made it easier to figure out who was who for them, and for reminding us both of the Maltese love for 1950s and 60s tribute acts, and for the existence of ex-South personnel at other clubs - in this case Steve Laurie (assistant coach), Peter Gavalas (physio), as well as the still active Shaun Timmins, Jerrad Tyson, and Melvin Becket.

Much to one person in particular's disappointment, Becket didn't even make the bench for Gully, nor he did he return the greeting offered by his biggest fan. The lesson here being, of course, never meet your heroes. Stranger though was the lineup that we put out, which after weeks of complaining about Esteban Quintas' ultra-defensive set-ups, on Friday night instead looked like something that was 65-80% compiled by the collective wisdom of the South forum.

Ben Djiba starting at right full-back, and Luke Adams on the bench. Daniel Clark on the bench (apparently for arriving late to the ground), and Zac Bates starting. Basically, it was the most attacking line-up we'd put on the park all year in the league, and that helped produce what was a pretty open game. Neither side was particularly good at producing quality final third product, but it was entertaining, which was a real change of pace for what we've dished up this year. But for the few hundred people at the game (up on the more usual mere couple of hundred for this fixture), at least they got their fifteen dollars worth in terms of end-to-end action.

It was weird to see a Quintas coached South side actually going toe-to-toe with an opponent of roughly similar calibre. I'm not so confident that it will always work out well, and the second half was in particular was much messier for us than I would have liked. Our midfield, or at least our desire to play through the midfield, disappeared almost entirely. Instead we resorted back to long ball after long ball to Harrison Sawyer, with Gerrie Sylaidos and Bates trying to pick up the scraps. It was invigorating to see Sylaidos and Bates unleashed, given licence to break lines and zip forward, at least in the first half. The second half's long-ball plan worked better than it should have, and I can't see it as a viable long-term prospect, but Sawyer did well enough with little help from either teammates or the officials to set up the winning goal.

He still looks as awkward as the proverbial baby giraffe, but for the time being he's getting the job done. Who knows what will happen if he gets injured, but you'd almost not want to think about it. 

That it took until the 80th minute or so for the deadlock to be broken is down to bad luck and poor finishing rather than a paucity of chances or lack of daring from either side. And then we got a bit lucky with a goal line clearance, but we escaped with a third 1-0 win for the year, and the players got to do their rendition of the dreadful 'Sweet Caroline', which is apparently their thing now instead of the 'Celtic Song'.

Along with the win came injuries both physical (Wallen's arm injury) and to one's pride (Daniel Clark), who seemed not quite as enthusiastic in his play as he usually is, after he had come on as a second half sub. We also continued to pick up yellow cards, and

Next game

Back at Lakeside on Saturday evening against St Albans, who are winless in their last four matches. Please note that the under 21s match will not be played as a curtain-raiser, but rather will be played after the senior match.

FFA Cup draw news

"So you like South vs Knights cup fixtures, eh?"
"Uh-huh"
"Well, have all the South vs Knights cup
 games in the world! Ahahahah, hahahah!

or the fifth round we've been drawn at home against Melbourne Knights. Quelle surprise. Did not see that coming. Here we go again. Fourth time in seven years. What is the point of even tuning in to the draw? You sit there at your computer or hold out your phone, waiting for the draw to start, then you find out that the draw is delayed by an hour and a half due to "technical issues", and then you just end up with this anyway. 

Football Victoria should just make South vs Knights a default fourth round FFA Cup game each year, and that way at least get rid of the pretense that the draw isn't rigged. Just alternate the home team each year. Save on the electricity bill by not having to heat up the balls in the microwave. I suppose we should be glad that we at least avoided the banana skin (on field and off) that would be a game against Preston - unless you're one of these people who want a big pay day - but that's really small comfort. Give me the cruisiest path to the cup any day of the week.

Expect the game to be fixtured pretty close to whenever it is we're supposed to play them in the league.

Rout via (mostly) the right hand channel

Judging by the opening half of their league season opening game against Bulleen, it looks like the senior women are back into overpowered squad domination mode. Which is fine by me, though I wish the audio on the NPL stream wasn't so unbalanced as to come out almost entirely through the right-hand speaker. The women were six goals up at half time, and finished with a 7-1 win. Who knows if this is an aberration on Bulleen's part - they looked a lot sharper in the second half than the first - but this could be a long season for pretty much everyone else other ourselves and Calder if that's the kind of performance we can dish out to a likely finals team. 

Image edited from original photo found on
 Wallen's Instagram page (IG:joshuawallen)

Anyone for a bowl of tea?

Josh Wallen's arm injury, which has required two surgeries, will rob us of one of our better players for several weeks. My guess (and probably yours) is that Luke Pavlou will probably take his place, but it could well be that Marcus Schroen has picked up enough match fitness to be able to start a game, if not quite finish one.

We can rest assured that Wallen is being well taken care of, because clearly the photo on the right was not taken in a public hospital - that toast certainly looks better than anything I've come across in the public system.

Of more concern in this matter is the size of the cup of tea that Wallen is seemingly about to drink while injured. That thing is so massive, you wonder how someone with a broken arm is supposed to safely lift that much hot liquid without spilling it on oneself.  

On the couch/On the streams/In the stands

Here's to getting into arguments with strangers at a game, on the topic of why the team you both support just so happens to suck so very, very much.

Here's to me sitting on level two at the Punt Road End on Saturday night, and somehow ending up next to one of the few people who apparently regularly attends Avondale matches, who himself may have been wondering how he ended up next to someone who still goes to South matches. Don't ask how the topic of soccer came up in conversation, only know that it was the more genial part of the conversation, as we spent most of the next three hours disagreeing about why exactly Collingwood sucked. He repertoire on that front was straight out of 1992, while I was - unusually for me, perhaps - very much in the present. I did check out some of the NPL Victoria stream action at halftime, when it wasn't drizzling so much, by which I mean I was trying to skim through to where the goals were. Certain teams really loving draws this year.

Irksome

I will say this for the Bentleigh vs Heidelberg game, and not much more. It was the first full-length game I watched on a stream for quite some time (though I say that with some frequency), and I still cannot get over the fact that several years down the live-streaming track, and NPL Victoria's offering still doesn't have a instant replay option. And no, I'm not talking about sliding the cursor back a few a seconds yourself, but something that's part of the coverage itself. If they can do it Tasmania, why can't they do it here?

Final thought

We're now thirteen points clear of the relegation zone; or fifteen more points to go as the kids like to say.

Zero Sugar - Werribee City 0 South Melbourne 6

Freddie Sey bundles in his first goal for South,
 putting South up 2-0. Photo: Luke Radziminksi.

This was the pre-season game you have when you're not having a pre-season game. It was at a ground that most South fans would never have heard of. You didn't have to pay to get in. It was against a lower league opponent. It was hot, with frequent drinks breaks. And we fielded what was a half-strength team, and still got the job done.

There's really not much more to say than that. What could have been a banana skin game turned out to be anything but. Werribee's senior squad seems to be very young, and while we fielded a couple of kids of our own, there was more than enough experience on the field for us to overcome whatever inexperience our youth team players would have carried into the game.

Backup goalkeeper James Burgess made his debut for South, with Pierce Clark being on the bench. Freddie Sey got his first start as a South player and his first goal. South junior Sasha Murphy made his debut, while fellow junior Yianni Panakos came off the bench and scored a penalty. Marcus Schroen got his first start of the season, and played just over a half. Brad Norton came back into the starting lineup. Gerrie Sylaidos was left out of the squad entirely, as was Ben Djiba, while Harry Sawyer and Henry Hore started on the bench; Hore would come on in the second half and score. Jake Marshall came in for Marco Jankovic, and Daniel Clark also came back into the starting eleven.

The most impressive player on the day was Zac Bates, who scored a couple of goals and set up at least one more. Overall, it was not the kind of lineup you're likely to see again this year. Within five minutes it got on to the front foot with a Norton goal, and without exerting itself too much, then went on to score goals at regular enough intervals to be emphatic without showing off - except for Bates' second goal, which was a bit showing off. 

What could have been a tricky week ends up with three wins, and some reasonably good rotation of the senior squad. Not one of the three opponents we faced over that eight day stretch offered up the kind of challenge that I expected. Magic, despite their spending and player pedigree, and despite taking the lead, were overwhelmed by a team that had only scored three goals in the opening four weeks. Thunder tried hard, and defended well enough, but were mostly kept in the game for as long as they were by some profligate finishing. And Werribee, despite the advantages of a few days extra rest, were out of the hunt within twenty minutes.

All of which means there'll still be doubters over how good this team actually is; and fair enough, too, because it's still early on in the season and there's much to learn. That, and we've also served up some real slop in the first six weeks of the year despite the good results. But as usual, it's worth remembering that things could have turned out much worse. Heidelberg apparently rested a bunch of first teamers, and got done by Nunawading. The sputtering Altona Magic are out, after losing to Ballarat City. But the shock of the round was Altona North coming from behind to beat St Albans - no idea what kind of lineup Dinamo fielded, but that's still a terrific result for a state 3 club.

Looking ahead to the next round of the cup and possible opponents, the draw has opened up more than I thought it would have. As well as the aforementioned NPL trio, Dandy Thunder are also out, having lost to Green Gully. At the time of print, Bentleigh, Dandy City, and Port Melbourne had all yet to play their lower league opponents.

All of which means we'll probably get drawn against Knights again.

Next game

Back to league action, away at Green Gully on Friday night.

Final thought

Some weird cats out there yesterday watching the game from the non-shaded parts of Grange Reserve. Hope they had their sunscreen on.

Giddy heights - South Melbourne 1 Dandenong Thunder 0

Keeping this one short because it needs to be knocked out before the game on Saturday.

Last night the strange 2021 season just got that little bit stranger. No one in the stands at South seems to seriously rate what we're doing, how we're doing it, or even the results that have come our way. And yet we're still undefeated, and top of the league after six games.

Mind you, being top of the league after six games with only three wins tells you a little bit about where this league is at the moment - it's both a very competitive league, and probably more than a bit of a mediocre one quality-wise. Put that down a little bit to the lack of visa players because of covid if you like, or just the normal cycle of things where some years are better than others. But how about that competitiveness! Just four points separate first (us! really!) and tenth, in part because teams like Eastern Lions are picking up points at a rate that no-one really expected them to, while other teams full of pricey "name brand" players aren't quite where they thought they'd be. 

And that pithy comment from our last post, about us having only picked up the points we had because we'd played three of the bottom four teams? Well, that's now two teams at the bottom, two in the middle, and two nearer the top end. I assume it'll sort itself out eventually, once the apertura portion of the season is finished, but for now let's enjoy the unexpected glory of South Melbourne being top of the league.

Starting with last Saturday's game, this was always going to be an important week for the team, one where the senior roster would have to be managed and the starting eleven positions rotated somewhat. Three games in eight days is a tough ask for teams in this league from a conditioning standpoint, especially for us as we've not been gifted one of the easier FFA Cup draws for the fourth round. And Saturday afternoon is going to be unseasonably warm, which won't make things easier for us against an opponent who has had a few extra days rest.

So back in to the starting lineup was Luke Pavlou, who was left out of last week's squad entirely. Also coming in for a rare start was Perry Lambropoulos. And Ben Djiba, having seemingly recovered from his injury issues from pre-season, was also in. Out of the starting team were Brad Norton, Jake Marshall, and Daniel Clark. Marcus Schroen was out of the match-day squad entirely, which hints to him being an important part of Saturday's game. With Luke Adams moving back to his more accustomed role of centre-back, we got to see a much more balanced attacking set-up, and evidence as well that Djiba can hold down the right-back position, at least against a pretty ordinary opponent like Thunder.

And while no disrespect is meant to Thunder, in general they were a poor opponent. Apart from whatever they could make of our mistakes from mucking around the backline, they were almost entirely dependent on a counter-attacking strategy. A more capable attacking side might have made more of some of the breaks they had; but then again, if Thunder were indeed a more capable side, chances are we wouldn't have set up the team in the more overtly attacking fashion that we did, instead reverting back to over-defensive setups of the earlier parts of the season thus far.

Though we clearly had the better of it, the first half was a bit of a mess from both teams. Part of that was down to the pitch, which saw players losing their footing on several occasions, especially towards the lake end of the ground. It will sound a little callous to say it, but my main concern with that was less to do with player safety, and more to do with the possibility that one of our players would slip over in the second half while defending at that end, leading to us coughing up a goal. That would have been less of a concern had we had a half-time lead of some sort, but we didn't. The final ball just wasn't there, though we got up to the right end of the field often enough. 

Second half, Thunder came out a bit more aggressively, pressing higher up the field, but their quality of possession wasn't up to scratch. And once we worked our way back into the half, we were if not quite all over them, then certainly the team most likely to score. Oh, but it was interminable waiting for that goal. The absence of Daniel Clark meant that our set pieces weren't up to scratch, but the finishing touches weren't there from open play either. It got to that point where you were waiting for the sucker-punch goal. But then Gerrie Sylaidos got behind the defence one more time, and shot the ball past the Thunder's keeper who it looks like got a hand on to it, which may have even deflected the ball into the net.

At least we created enough chances to say that we deserved the win on the balance of probabilities, so that if we scored from a slightly fortuitous goal, it was not for want of more orthodox opportunities. It would have been nice to have scored earlier, so that we could have perhaps rested some players a bit earlier, but what can you do? A warm evening, a convivial, mixed crowd, an entertaining game, and three points in the bag. You wouldn't want to get greedy.

Next game

FFA Cup match against Werribee City on Saturday afternoon. 

Please note that the kickoff time for this game has been adjusted to 3:00PM, from the previous (and now apparently preliminary) 2:00PM timeslot. 

As per the previous post, please note that this game is being played at Grange Reserve, the home of Hoppers Crossing Soccer Club, and not at Galvin Park, Werribee's normal home ground.

A new player? Already?

Talk on Twitter that midfielder Josh Barresi is set to join us from South Australian club Campbelltown. Barresi was a fringe A-League player (no senior appearances that I can find), and had stints in Victoria with Bulleen Lions (2016) and Green Gully (2018). If this transfer is true, I wonder who's going to be shunted out of the current senior roster.

Livestreams

Much frivolity on the livestreams last night, again. There was the (now deleted) tweet by a prominent NPL commentator about too many cameras competing for limited space at Knights Stadium. There was also the return from local commentary banishment of Teo Pellizzeri, which is good to see. Even wilder, our own game was being called by *the* voice of Channel 31 soccer, Thanis "Arthur" Arkritidis! With so much retro action, I had to check to make sure that Ian Burke hadn't been summoned to call the Gully game; no dice on that front, but we live in hope.

Yet the most important part of the livestream, the video feed itself, continues to be a shambles in 2021. In what was apparently a pretty tense game last night between Knights and the Bergers, the Football Victoria stream went offline late in the game at just the time the Bergers scored what turned out to be the winning goal. Someone out there is getting paid to provide what is turning out this year to be a less than stellar service this year.

Final thought

Speaking of being top of the league, in partial answer to last week's query about when the last time Knights and South occupied the top two places on the ladder, Andrew Howe noted that for the National Soccer League:

bit late to the party here but last time Melb Knights & Sth Melb were 1st & 2nd respectively on NSL ladder was end of 93-94 season,as they were for most of 2nd half of that season. those positions 1st held in 1985(R9), then 5 times thru 90-91(incl final ladder) & 3 times in 91-92

— andrew howe (@AndyHowe_statto) March 30, 2021

A really half-arsed search by me to try and find the last time the two teams occupied first and second on the ladder in the post-NSL era came up very short. Maybe circa March 2015? Regardless, it wasn't a situation which lasted long.

Not unacceptable - Altona Magic 1 South Melbourne 4

You'll miss this backdrop when it's gone.
Photo: Luke Radziminksi.

To begin this blog post, a quick question: when was the last time you attended a game where South Melbourne was both dominating a game, and leading by a margin big enough to make you feel comfortable in paying less attention to the game than you otherwise would?

It's almost a trick question, because the answer is probably our 5-2 win over Eastern Lions last year, but I tell you what, it did feel like it's been a lot longer than that. When we were 3-1 up midway through the second half, and looking like we were cruising, our local chat turned to reminiscing about Neighbours, late night television hosts, and my flailing attempts to talk about how the best band of the '90s was the one that seemingly cared the least. 

Before we got to that point though, we saw what was the most complete performance by a South team for quite some time. Notwithstanding the poor luck which saw us fall behind - seriously, that "shit" was headed for corner flag before it deflected off Lirim Elmazi - almost everything either side of that goal was remarkably not displeasing. Unlike much of this team's timid temperament thus far under Esteban Quintas, on Saturday night the team was assertive in attack to such a degree that it was almost unrecognisable from the previous four rounds.

Marco Jankovic's shot finds itself just out of
 reach of Altona Magic keeper Chris Oldfield.
Photo: Luke Radziminski.

Instead of relying on longballs to Harry Sawyer, the team was getting - as a collective - in and around the box, and looked threatening. A bit better shooting, and a bit more luck with the ball landed after a ricochet or clearance, and we wouldn't have even needed to come from behind to win this game. 

Incidentally, that's the first time that we've come from behind since  we beat Bentleigh Greens in round 14, 2019. And think of how many times we've fallen behind since that time!

To be fair, the opposition was coach-less, having reputedly sacked John Markovski during the week, which took away some of the potential fun of a game against Magic. They were also missing some good players, or so I'm told; but to be fair to us, Altona still also had some pricey players out there, even if they were of a vintage that was frightening for the fact that one of those geriatrics - namely, Vince Lia - was so old, that he had played for us back in 2004, after having made his debut for us in 2001!

Like, what year is this even?

The performance was everything I thought that the capable albeit unremarkable squad that we had at our disposal should be able to achieve. Conditional competence, with occasional bursts of dominance, and some excellence. It was never too much to ask for, and on Saturday we saw what this team could do by selecting its best (or at least better) personnel and adopt an assertive, confident approach.

We're also becoming a strong, bullying team. Because of the mediocre results and performances, and the way we've gone into a our shell far too often, it's gone largely unremarked that we have some tough players who are willing to put in some hard tackles. Of course that approach comes with collecting yellow cards, and that will become a problem across the season - but if you live by the sword, you die by the sword.

The win leaves the team as still the only undefeated side in the competition, as well as in second place on the ladder behind Melbourne Knights. That little factoid has left people wondering when the last time South and Knights occupied the top two places on the table at the end of a round, with most people's guesses being some point in the mid-1990s; either that, or early 2015. But who's going to put the effort to find out? Not me, that's for sure.

So after several less than inspiring performances and results, everything's good now, right? Well, not quite. A couple of days after the fact, the shine is taken off the win just a smidge because five rounds in, it turns out we've played three of the current bottom four sides. It may well be that 2021 will be one of those very even, perhaps even mediocre years of Victorian soccer. Are we set up for a season ala 2011, where some opportunist team will claim a title because they were the best of a meandering bunch? That could play right into our hands.

Of course, we could just as easily put in a mediocre performance midweek, in which case I'll take back everything good I said about the team here.

Next game

Dandenong Thunder at home on Wednesday night. Keep in mind that this match is scheduled to kick off at 7:30PM, and that there will be no reserves curtain raiser. 

FFA Cup fixturing news

While no one seems to have come out yet and made an "official" announcement, it appears as if our round 4 FFA Cup match against Werribee City is going to be held this Saturday afternoon at 2:00pm at Grange Reserve, Hoppers Crossing - not at Werribee's normal home ground of Galvin Park.

Final thought

Some serious issues have emerged with NPL Victoria's livestream service. Poor filming angles due to no elevated camera positions, and light-towers obstructing views are old problems, added to this year by Gardiners Creek Reserve having a whole damn tree in the way. But the real issue is the service cutting out or stalling repeatedly. This seems to a be a weekly occurence now. Plenty of issues emerged with our game last week, as well as in the curtain raiser. Even while I was sitting in the carpark at Sunshine station waiting for a mate, just trying to watch the last ten minutes of Avondale vs Knights, and the whole thing just froze around the 81 minute mark. 

Whatever one's opinion on the merits of the livestream, if they're going to have it the least they could do is make sure it works. 

Not winning, not losing - Port Melbourne 0 South Melbourne 0

I don't know why I sometimes take so long to post match reports. I think it might have something to do with the farther away we get from a game, the less bad I feel about it. If I wrote and posted this straight after getting home last Friday? Probably full of queasy hyperbole about sacking everyone and doom and the pain of it all, and things like that. If I posted it on Sunday? Maybe something a bit more imbued with try-hard levelheadedness.

Now though, at this very late stage of the report writing week? Meh. We got a point. Probably should have got all three, but things could be worse. Onto next week. Did you notice that there are pomegranate trees out the back of Port's ground? How teeth-rottingly good are $2 cans of soft drink? I really should have brought more than half a pack of lozenges with me. That kind of thing.

Anger has dissipated to acceptance at a remarkably rapid rate; that state where we must accept the things we cannot change, while still having the courage to keep turning up to South in the hopes of being the person who can finally shut the lights off - winning the title of all-time smugness champion (for enduring longer than anyone else), and also the title of all-time pointless masochism (also for enduring longer than anyone else).

Every week my belief that we have at least a competent squad is bolstered. The way this season is going, albeit based on a small sample size, this squad could even make the finals just based on how middle-of-the-road almost every other team seems to be. But the weeks have also bolstered my belief that the coach is not up to it. Is it a communication issue? Is it a case of playing favourites? Is it my latest cack-headed theory, that he's actually too smart for this league, that he's overthought what's going on out there? 

I threw up that idea at about halftime last week, that maybe Quintas is actually really smart, and that his tactical prowess might be too much for this competition. If that's the case, maybe we need an out-and-out idiot coaching us instead, someone with a rudimentary at best understanding of soccer tactics; someone who will go out of their way to pick the best eleven players available to start a match, play them in their most suitable positions, and sub off players who are injured or tired.

Maybe such a coach could even throw on a player to take advantage of their opponent going down to ten men, especially when you're in the midst of overrunning them. I don't know. Maybe we're so broke we can't actually afford to put subs on when the opportunity seems to present itself. Maybe it's not even the cost of the individual sub who'd' get paid an appearance fee, but the win they might contribute towards, which could end up seeing the whole squad paid a win bonus.

One could blame Harry Sawyer for our not scoring last week - I mean, his penalty attempt was pretty tame - but on the other hand, he has scored two of our league-lowest tally of three goals (hello 2019!). And would it kill us to have to rely on more than one clear-cut chance a week to maybe win a game, or at best break-even? Oh, I found some working earphones left behind the bus, does that count as getting ahead? Probably not, but these are the kind of skinny margins we're talking about here.

The first half, my goodness, what was it with this switching the ball from the right to the left? I mean, it worked insofar as the ball managed to get where it was designed to go, but it failed to do nearly anything else, because by the time the ball did get to the left (where everyone assumed it would end up) Port's defence was now in place. The second half, where for some reason that tactic was abandoned for half an hour at least, was much better. We even looked like scoring a couple of times. Imagine we set up the team like that for the whole game, instead of trying to stalemate our way to a one win, 25 draw season.

I'm not going to say that the opponent was of a particularly high calibre, but since most of our fans (and probably the rest of the league) have written us off as also being meh, it was nice to be clearly the better team at least in part by choice and/or design. That's not to say that Port didn't have chances to score, and Pierce Clark has done his bit to keep us with one of the best defensive records in the game. 

But you can't help but feel that somehow, despite self-indulgent grumbling about how awful we are, that we could, perhaps should have an extra four points on the board, and thus maybe even be top of the league, which says something about the filthy state of the league at this particular moment of time. 

I felt sorry for Daniel Clark, who had to be both right-back and winger; for Brad Norton, who needed to be relieved at about the 80 minute because he'd worked so hard, and had nothing left to give; for Zac Bates, and Ben Djiba, and whoever else was on the bench, but not given a chance. I felt good for Gerrie Sylaidos, who looked more decisive, like maybe he'd turned a corner. And I felt good for me, for finally getting some new glasses so that I could see all of this a bit better.

Having missed seeing the previous week's game because of public transport shenanigans, it was only fitting that I did not bother to check on whether there were going to be any train shenanigans this week, and get burned because of it. The 234 being a silly bus which does not stop exactly near any CBD train station, on the way back I took it up to near enough to Flagstaff so that I could exit the city loop in the shortest amount of time possible; only to then learn that there were no trains to Sunshine going through the loop, so I had to walk to Elizabeth St, catch a tram down to Flinders with some pissed guy who considered pulling the emergency door release handle, and then catch a train back to Sunshine.

If you try hard enough, you may be able to discern in that a metaphor for what this South team is trying to do. Though, to absolutely butcher a lyric from Art Brut's 'Emily Kane', "every allegory looks like a South one, when I squint".

Next game

Altona Magic at Paisley Park on Saturday evening, the last of this stretch of early season away games.

FFA Cup news

Last Monday I was sitting on my laptop, waiting for the livestream of the local women's cup draw to finish, because I assumed that soon afterward there would be the draw for the next round of FFA Cup matches. That didn't happen. I then completely forgot about the possibility that Football Victoria might do the draw yesterday, so of course that's when they did it, while I was out galivanting around Brunswick with a mate.

I jumped on Twitter later on, and found that the draw had taken place, and that we'd been drawn away against NPL 2 team Werribee City. Without wanting to overinflate the capabilities of our opponent, it was a bit of a dud draw for us, seeing as how almost every other team in our division seemed to get fixed up against a team lower down the food chain.

New old videos being added

Some of you may have seen that I've begun uploading some new South related content to my YouTube channel. On Friday I was given a good amount of South videos spanning 1983 to about 1995 on a couple of portable hard drives, and I'll be uploading those at a gradual rate. The best way to keep up to date with new uploads is to subscribe to my channel, check my Twitter feed, or hope that someone else shares links.

I'm thankful to those who passed the videos on to me, though they wish to remain anonymous. The content is mostly, but not exclusively, South Melbourne wins in the National Soccer League. A reasonable amount of the videos have been uploaded in other formats, either by me or by others sharing the same kinds of content, so my initial focus will be on uploading those games that I have not seen uploaded anywhere on the net. 

I've not had a chance to go through all the videos yet, but the labelling on the files is a bit off on a few occasions, so I also have to figure out what game's from when. Still, having a basic understanding of when certain players were at the club, as well having John Kyrou's spreadsheets on hand, means that figuring what game it is isn't that time consuming.

For those who take an interest in such things, much of the 1990s footage in this tranche will be familiar viewing; still, more recent South fans  - who are unfamiliar with the great early 1990s era of South Melbourne Hellas - will get a kick out of seeing what was a very good team, as well as a great feel for Middle Park in the early days of summer soccer. 

The 1980s footage will be less familiar to even keen older fans. Apart from its relative rarity (especially the 1983 stuff), it includes some of the lower points of the club's history - those 1986, '87, and '89 seasons weren't exactly crash hot for us, or for the NSL in general. So in the videos which cover that era you'll see some small crowds, a few truly dire pitches, and an often very physical style of play. 

But the good players and moments still shine through, and like me, I anticipate you'll appreciate the skill of players having to put up with less than ideal playing conditions, and yet still being able to do some quite wonderful things with the ball. 

Final thought / Puskas documentary

Some of you may remember the ongoing effort to create a documentary on Ferenc Puskas' time in Australia, and especially Puskas' time at South. Well, the following message has been posted by Tony Wilson on Instagram and Facebook:

For quite a few years now, I've been making a documentary about Ferenc Puskas in Australia, that's also about the old NSL, South Melbourne Hellas, Greek immigration, Hungarians in exile post '56, community and sport, and the 1991 Grand Final.

We're at the business end, literally in the sense that we have to raise money to pay for post production and footage licences. but also we need to close the lid on the archival resources we're going to use:

Does anyone have photos or footage of: 

1. Middle Park, crowd shots, atmosphere at games, arriving at games, club rooms, club functions, with South Melbourne being the focus, Just missing 1991 (say 1994) might still work.

2. A photo that shows the ethnic affiliation of the club they supported, with fans or players - we have an explainer on the ethnic nature of the NSL for overseas audiences; (Croatian flag... star of David, Yugoslavian connections etc etc)

3. Puskas photos or footage, any era, but particularly South Melbourne or out at Keysborough doing his clinics, pre-South Melbourne. (The holy grail here would be hand held video 8 or beta or vhs or super 8 from fans hanging around the club rooms, or going to airport to meet Puskas)

4. Footage or photos from the welcome function, 1989.

5. Footage or photos from the crowd on grand final day 1991, especially post match, club rooms.

6. Footage or photos from the post premiership end of season trip to Greece, 1991.

7. Great photos of South icons of the 1988-91 era, Ange Postecoglou, Mike Peterson, Paul Trimboli, Kimon Taliadoros, Mehmet Durakovic, Con Boutsianis, Paul Wade, Peter Tsolakis, Jim Pyrgolios, Steve Blair.

We hope to have the film finished in the next few months. Any help would be appreciated. My email is tony at tonywilson dot com dot au

This is it folks. Somebody out there must have something, or know somebody who has something, to help out Tony and Rob with this film.

I've had a sneak peek at some of the film segments. The match footage is great. The talking heads lined up for the interviews have done their bit. Now the filmmakers need the stuff that only exists in people's scrapbooks, photo albums, cupboards, and boxes in the garage, to really take the film to the next level.

If you have anything stashed away that could help filmmakers Tony Wilson and Rob Heath, or if you know someone who has this kind of material, then now is the time to step up and be counted. Don't be that person who'll see the film when it comes out, who'll say "oh, I had this photo or that homemade footage, they should've included that in the film". Be the person who'll be able to say, "that photo or footage at that part of the film? That was mine".

Streaming - Oakleigh Cannons 1 South Melbourne 1

Maybe it's because I'm getting older, and because my family circumstances have changed, but on Friday night I found that I had a limit to what it would take to keep me away from a South game in Melbourne - and that limit was what I surmised as being a train replacement bus service that was just going to be too much bother.

Getting there wasn't going to be a problem - and it usually isn't when it comes to getting to Jack Edwards Reserve, one of the NPL's better grounds for the public transport minded - but getting back was going to be a different story. Basically, it would have required getting a train for one stop to Oakleigh (or walking through the dark industrial backblocks), a bus out to Burnley, a train back to the city, and then another train to Sunshine.

On a normal night, when everything goes as planned, I'd get back home about midnight. And maybe something similar would have happened last Friday even with the altered travel arrangements, but lord help us if something went askew. And while I could've, I guess, asked someone for a lift back to the city on the night, I'm not a big fan of doing that because of my first rule of using public transport to get to a ground - that being, always be sure you can actually get back.

I made the call early enough in the week so that I could arrange other entertainment for myself and a mate, in this case seeing Luke Howard (piano) and Nadje Noordhuis (trumpet) at the Melbourne Recital Centre, playing material off their Ten Sails album. If this was early last year, I'd say it was unusual for me to head to a concert of any sort; but as it's this year,  it's unusual for anyone to head to a concert.

Aside from the sauna-esque conditions of the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, and some problems with a crackly speaker during the performance of the seventh piece, the night was otherwise the epitome of middlebrow contentment, in the best sense of jazz-classical improvised compositions, complete with overpriced drinks from the bar next door. 

And despite not being at the game, I still reached my weirdo quota for the week, when some blokes - who may or may not have been attached to the Free Julian Assange protest on the Flinders Street station steps - trailed me and my mate, trying to recruit us for what they called an Oceans Eleven style attempt at busting Assange out of jail. Luckily as we were walking past the National Gallery of Victoria, our potential recruiters noticed that some bloke was standing in the gallery's moat looking for something, and we were able to walk on in peace.

All of which is a very longwinded introduction to my actually watching the game on YouTube the next morning. I thought the biggest issue would be coming across something to do with the game on social media, especially on Twitter to which I have a serious addiction. But actually avoiding news of the game was quite easy. The most difficult part? Turning on the stream on Saturday morning and having Brandon Galgano's voice blaring out of the television. Now I'm a morning person, but Brandon's enthusiasm was nonetheless a bit startling, but one became accustomed to it soon enough.

It looked like a decent crowd, but since the effects mic (if they had any) wasn't picking up any noise, I don't know if the atmosphere was any good. Bit too much food talk for liking, of which I have a low tolerance even when it's meant well and with zero attempt at being patronising. I tell you one thing though, this is the closest attention I've paid to a South game for some time, not because I'd stopped caring, but mostly because in-person attendance is also a social and sensory experience. 

One thing that surprised me however was how much I still care. When Henry Hore tore that Oakleigh defender a new one, and Josh Wallen subsequently tapped home, I was in raptures - and I don't think it was just because it was unexpected. Within the context of the game we were the better side in the first half, and even though it wasn't like Oakleigh weren't in the game, we actually looked the most competent we have so far in 2021. Big sample size I know, and I wasn't getting carried away with anything, but it was nice that even within the strictures of Esteban's ultra-defensive setup, that we could be competitive against one of the league's better squads.

After half time though Oakleigh adjusted and started playing a few more balls in the channels either side of the 'D' the 18 yard box. When the ball got played there, there was confusion between our DMs, CBs, and FBs - all of whom are generally playing deep - about who was meant to step up and fill the space. That doesn't mean one should excuse the apparently blatant handball in the leadup to the goal, only that on the balance of probabilities, Oakleigh were going to score a goal eventually, and they did.

The disappointing thing for us, as is likely to be the case going on, is that because we are set up in an obviously unbalanced manner, scoring one goal is going to be tough, but two or more even harder. That's especially the case if we decide to just hold on to a 1-0 lead for 45 minutes. While at least in this game the long balls to Sawyer were less a case of being the first option, and a bit more of the being the next option, when he got subbed whatever our one plan is for going forward this season went to the bench with him. 

But back to that unbalanced lineup. If you were to take a stab at who was going to be our most important player in 2021 based on these three games, it's got to be. He's the midfield lynchpin, he's the pivot, and he's the main harasser. If he's not being marked out of a game, if he isn't gassed an hour in from the workload, and if he doesn't trip over the ball under his feet, we might have a chance of jagging a goal. If he's not in the game, the midfield becomes rudderless, and there's not enough pressure to create a turnover higher up the field - because Quintas basically only has Clark and Sawyer doing that job.

Sawyer is our second most important player, because as streaming co-commentator Lachie Flannigan noted, we're playing Sawyer as the bounce-pass forward for whoever's meant to be running off him. I don't think Sawyer's particularly suited to the hold-up role despite his frame, but if we're going to play with one up front and using this method, he's all we've got. 

(though one should remember, when extolling the success of the Chris Taylor era, that as much as Milos Lujic was a superior talent to Sawyer, Lujic barely missed a league game from 2014-2017, an astonishing run broken up only very rarely for injury or suspension; things might have been a different for us back then if Lujic hadn't played as much as he did)

Our third most important player? It's go to be Brad Norton. Why? Because he's the only attacking threat from behind the halfway line, considering how defensively this side is set up. Quintas needs to decide once and for all to select players in their best position, and where necessary in their best tandem. We have several full-back options. Lirim Elmazi, Brad Norton, Ben Djiba, Perry Lambropoulos, and yet we play Luke Adams at right-back, who cannot effectively make his way up the field.

If Adams is not the best option for a centre-back pairing with either Jake Marshall or Marco Jankovic, then he should be on the bench. If Adams is a better centre-back option in a pair with either Jankovic or Marshall, then one of those two should be on the bench. Because Adams is at right-back, one whole side of the field is taken away from us going forward, and we are essentially already pinned back there when we're defending.  

Watching this team is becoming annoying, not because I think it's capable of winning a championship any time soon, but under another coach there'd at least be the chance to pick the best eleven to start a game without playing favourites, and without thinking you're halfway to losing a game from kickoff. Whatever enthusiasm the team is showing - and they're certainly having a go - playing ninety minutes of frightened or neutered backs to the wall football every week is going to wear thin eventually. 

And that's got to have a deleterious effect on our attacking options. Gerrie Sylaidos looks like he's lacking confidence. There were moments in this game that, had they happened even last year, Sylaidos would have certainly acted more assertively. His refusal or inability to pull the trigger so far this year, whether that's in the form of a pass or shot, is of a deep concern. Henry Hore finally got the ball at his feet and managed to show what he can do, but like Gerrie offers nothing going back. Now that's fine if the team is set up in a way where Hore and Gerrie don't need to do things they're not equipped for; but everyone else (apart from Norton) is sitting so deep that Gerrie and Henry have to run themselves ragged, and if they do get the ball up field, they then have to wait for everyone to come up by which time they've been dispossessed by a stronger player, or had to make a backwards or sideways pass which kills the momentum of the forward thrust.

And bloody hell, are we actually going to manage to get behind an opposition defensive line by design rather than by fluke? And some of our players need to stop looking for soft penalties, too.

All of which is to say that, as usual, you'd have taken a point before the game, but you hate the point you got at the end of it. Hard to please, it's true, but I know this team can do better. I'm not sure anyone with the agency to make that happen believes it though.

Next game

Port Melbourne away on Friday night. I should be there for that one.

This Luke, That Luke

Last week I wondered Luke Patitsas of fellow South blog Sour Grapes would resume his efforts in 2021; word is that work and study commitments, as well as inconvenient fixturing are going to limit his output this year, though he is looking to write some stuff when he can.

But if you want Luke action, Luke Radziminski - better known for his photography - has been writing pieces on South games for the Footy Almanac, which you can find here. 

On the streams

Wet n' Wild

At home, just because. No genuine opportunity to go see a game of any sort, but there's streams, always streams. And then when it starts raining, staying home looks like a sensinble deicision, even when it's not really a decision. Mark Van Aken and a cameraman are huddled together under a tarpaulin in the media scaffold at the Reggio Calabria Club. It starts raining, and then bucketing down. The camera operator periodcially wipes the lens clear. Van Aken's research notes are ruined by the weather. He pushes on, taking his commentary a step back from naming individual players, as Gully scores, has a man sent off, and as the rain comes in sideways late during the first half, he decides that people shouldn't have to work under these conditions; he's had enough, and as he abandons his post, I can't say that I blame him. The cameraman stays in place, and we get the rest of the game, Gully gets the win, and we find that collectively we have a long way to go before our facilities catch up to our ambitions.

Unwatchable, and to some people, also unlistenable

Found myself with a little bit of spare time late on Sunday afternoon. Decided to drop in on the stream of St Albans vs Melbourne Knights. Now Greg Blake as main commentator... I get it, he's not everyone's cup of tea. I can tolerate his style when I'm in the right frame of mind, or when he has someone like George Cotsanis in special comments. But a game should at least be watchable. Thanks to Melbourne Knights style-over-substance kit preferences - wearing some of grey and black number - watching passages of play that drifted into the shadowed parts of Churchill Reserve absolutely pointless. So I stopped watching, with Knights 1-0 up, and moved onto something else. But then I decided, what the hell, let's just have the video and I'll listen to it in the background, and what do you know, that was a nice payoff as Dinamo scored two goals in the last ten minutes or so. Squinting at the video was a little more fun than usual.

Final thought

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.

The New Normal - Heidelberg United 0 South Melbourne 1

A healthy crowd in a compact ground. It all felt
a bit country footy. Photo: Luke Radziminksi.

I know I said that I was unlikely to go to Jack Edwards Reserve, in the event that there was a lack of a plan with regards to ticketing and crowd capacity. And yet, though there was no plan publicised, I ended up at the ground anyway. 

You'll say that of course that I was always going to turn up, but what turned it for me was the Dandenong derby on the Friday night, where a large crowd was in attendance all around the ground, and who knows what if any advice was given to spectators beforehand. Later on I heard they may have begun to turn people away from George Andrews Reserve, but that's more or less hearsay to me, much in the same way that the rumour started that the grandstand at Olympic Village had been condemned. 

More likely in the latter case, it was actually the old media and VIP shed on the western side of the ground that's been deemed even more unsafe than the rest of the venue. That would make sense; after all, if the eastern stand was really that dangerous, why were there spectators and a film crew allowed in there to watch the under 19s and 21s fixtures? But I digress.

Out here in Sunshine, it's rail replacement services up and down the Sunbury line at the moment, which makes getting out to places like Oakleigh that little bit more bothersome. Still, one of the minor perks of covid is that there's fewer people using public transport, so everything went smoothly enough on that front. Caught up with Gains at Flinders Street (but not before trying to jog my memory about which line Huntingdale station is on), then we took another petri dish out to Oakleigh, and soon we were at the ground.

Once at the gate, I saw the first evidence of a covid plan of some sort. Usually my media pass is enough to get me into a ground without too much hassle, but on Sunday there was a QR code on the ticket booth to scan and fill in details for. Good for pleb members of the crowd, albeit it'd be nice if there was some forewarning in case the majority Greek crowd turned up five minutes before kickoff as per custom, and then had to fiddle with phones and digital forms to get in.

Which is another way of saying, considering that as part of my media pass a lication I already had to supply contact detail information, couldn't they just let me into the venue after taking down my pass number? But after no soccer for a year, one doesn't want to complain too much, because the experience on that front went fine enough. I do wonder though whether it will mirror the procedure for entering Lakeside this Friday and the weeks to come. Might be a good idea to put out a note in the socials in the leadup to the game. Maybe.

Once in the ground, everything just seemed mellow. Warm, sunny day, some people I saw last week or the week before, and a whole bunch of people I hadn't seen for about a year. There was also a distinct lack of emotional angst. Maybe everyone's a bit rusty and the angst and anger will come back, or maybe the time off has seen everyone grow a bit older in ways other than just the chronological. 

Maybe most of our diehards have realised, finally, that the war is indeed over, and that we should enjoy the time we have left with this club, whether that be two years, ten years, or somehow more. Sure, there's still going to be people who haven't got the message yet that we've surrendered, and thus they'll keep fighting in Twitter's Filipino jungles for a couple more decades; but most people just seemed glad to be back. How many people that were there on Sunday will once again become regulars - outside of a game against old rivals, and for many at least, at venues within short distance of home - remains to be seen.

Without being at all scientific about it, the consensus may well be that people are getting tired of fighting, or at least tired of fighting the forever war that was South Melbourne 2005-2020. Some of them are probably also tired of fighting with people at home to go South games, instead of family functions and sundry responsibilities. I reckon it's been a long time since a South game would've fallen under the category of a family outing as it was in the past. As usual though, I worry that when I make these kinds of observations, I am actually just extrapolating my own feelings onto the wider South Melbourne Hellas community who may have already reached that stage of emotional resignation years before I caught up to what might now be an ancient zeitgeist.

The mellow vibe extended to the surrounds. Middle Park was a classic suburban venue, Olympic Village much the same, and Lakeside a step or two up from either of those while still inhabiting that conceptual space. But Jack Edwards is more truly suburban, and no amount of new electronic scoreboards can change that feeling. Important things happened at the other grounds mentioned - and while it's not like there haven't been important games here, too - it's not really even remotely the same thing.

Instead of being partisan, the atmosphere was closer to that of a large community picnic. I reckon also that were there were considerably more South fans or sympathisers there than Berger fans. That's unusual in that the numbers have been more even over the past few years. Maybe being in more South friendly territory in the south-eastern suburbs, and the fact that the nominal home team support couldn't rally around the Snake Charmer (who was apparently banned from playing his clarinet) distorted that perception.

I don't know how many people were in attendance. The stand wasn't full, but maybe there were restrictions on how many could sit there - or maybe people didn't feel comfortable staring into the setting sun. Around the rest of the ground there was a solid amount of people without anyone feeling that their personal space and enjoyment of the game would be impeded. Is this the kind of crowd that people would envisage as being suitable for a second division, in both numbers and style? I don't know the answer to that question either.

The game itself - and there was a game in the middle of my musings on mellowness - was exciting, and occasionally of a certain quality, though the latter had more to do with Heidelberg's Japanese signing from New South Wales than anything we were able to put together for much of the game. 

Just about everyone's said it, and so there's no harm in me saying it as well: South's performance in the first half was rusty at best, and several unmentionable adjectives at worst. Only Heidelberg's profligate finishing kept us in the game at the break. To be fair, while we were cut up in midfield and allowed the Bergers to get into the box far too easily, I was at least pleased to see that instead of panicky defense, we decided to rugby union our way out of trouble more often than not, rather than pussy-foot around the back.

One thing I forgot to mention from last week's report from the St Albans friendly was how much it seemed that Esteban Quintas wanted the team to play out from the back. It didn't really work then, and while we set up in vintage Nunawading style from goal kicks a couple of times, I think someone figured out early enough (maybe due to the narrow ground, or maybe due to Pierce Clark's poor distribution by foot) that it wasn't going to work on Sunday and put an end to it. 

Even when we muscled our way back into the game after a shaky start - and apart from the three points, the welcome bullying physicality of Josh Wallen and Marco Jankovic seemed to be the main takeaway for a lot of people - going forward there were clear issues. Maintaining possession in midfield seemed difficult, especially when expecting Gerrie "he's only a little kid" Sylaidos to shoulder a lot of that burden. Henry Hore, who by all reports appeared lively during pre-season, was not quite as effective in this game.

What's more, it didn't really make any difference on whether a player had played something closer to a full season last year (say, in Queensland) or not (pretty much everyone else). Some people played better than others, and there was no real method to it other than the people I generally expected to play well did so, and those that I have longstanding doubts about, didn't.

It's funny though how sometimes dumb luck smiles upon you, and shows you what you may be good at. For us, that aforementioned physicality and the height that comes with it, might well be the thing that carries us to at least mid-table mediocrity in 2021. Six years ago at the same venue, Tim Mala put in the best cross of his life to find Nick Epifano at the back post, who controlled well and snuck the ball in past the goalkeeper. 

On Sunday, at the same end of the ground, Josh Wallen lumped a mess of a cross into the box, which fell onto the head of the very tall Harry Sawyer, who had front position in front of the very short Heidelberg keeper trying to reach the ball; after hitting Sawyer's head, shoulders, and back, the ball proceeded to fall over the goal line before the Berger defenders could clear it away.

The well-worn truism remains the same as it ever was - they all count the same. But a bit more polish and method wouldn't go astray.

Now the state leagues, mercifully, don't have VAR. And even if they did have VAR, you'd hope they wouldn't have overturned this goal. Still, goalkeepers being protected species, regardless of whether VAR exists or not, I don't think anyone was expecting the otherwise perfectly legitimate goal to stand. In that respect, the celebrations were muted as if there was VAR involved. 

Anyway, having gone ahead, we may have learned something about this team: that it looks better with a lead than without one. With the game in the balance, we looked more vulnerable than our opposition. With the lead, and with the opposition committing more numbers forward to get the goal back, we were able to break forward a few times on the counter-attack. That we were unable to add to our single goal was disappointing, as was the late fade out which saw the otherwise tired Bergers find a second wind, but we held on and won the game; our first win in round 1 since 2016.

Neither team was at its fittest. That's round 1 for you, and it's especially evidence of how much lockdown interrupted pre-season has stalled preparations. We were a bit fitter, a bit stronger, and a bit luckier. Sometimes that's enough. It's not a win that solved any of our on-field problems, but it did help expose them a bit more and hopefully gets the coaching staff thinking about more tenable solutions. Pierce Clark had a good game in terms of shot stopping, but a messy game in other facets. We have a lot of defenders to choose from, and not all of them can play in the same team. Apart from Brad Norton, our back four was tall, heavy, and somewhat flatfooted against speedy smaller players.

Having Luke Adams at right fullback also meant limited opportunities for overlapping runs. At one point in the second half Daniel Clark played a ball into the corner, expecting a run from Adams, but the run never came. And yet despite the disappointment contained in that sequence, I also get why Adams wasn't there - if the pass went awry in some fashion, all of a sudden there'd be no-one behind Adams to close down the channel on that right wing.

Attacking wise we have some talent which misfired a bit, especially when trying to work together. Much of the plan going forward became long diagonal balls to backtracking opponents, and hoping to win the second ball crumbs. That tactic worked a bit more than I expected, but I wouldn't expect that to work so much against the better teams. And the tactic also has the whiff of George Cross rugby tactics circa the mid 2000s that gives me the heebie-jeebies, if for no other reason than the fact that George Cross are several divisions below us for reasons like a reliance on that tactic.

At the end of the game, the celebrations were politely raucous, and contrary to one interpretation of a post-match photo of yours truly, I was content with the result, if not exactly the method used to reach that point. And then I had to find someone I'd promised to loan two portable blank hard drives. Then I saw my FNR colleague and NPL commentator Josh Parish, and asked him if he was able to work any of the insights I gave him into the game. Then I saw Ben Coonan, producer of the little Football Belongs ethnic vignettes. And then I went home.

Next week

Eastern Lions at home on Friday night. Lions are once again everyone's pick to get relegated, but that doesn't mean they should be taken lightly. I mean, they pushed hard against us last year

Optus Sport Football Belongs podcast

The other week I was on a podcast with Roy Hay, John Didulica, and David Davutovic, discussing the 1964 Slavia vs VFL XI match at Olympic Park, as well as other digressions.

Match programs

Greg Stock has been scanning and uploading Canberra City and Cosmos match programs, and sending the South related stuff our way. His efforts have filled in three or four gaps, including one where I didn't expect a program to exist - a 1980 pre-season friendly. 

On the streams

A half here, a half there, and bits of pieces everywhere else.

For better or worse, I'm going to be experiencing more NPL action via the streams than in person than I used to. I suppose that we should be reassured that this service is still going, though I'm not convinced that they need to do the under 21s matches. Then again, I'm not convinced that the under 21s need to exist, because I'm not sure any player reaching that age should be doing anything other than playing regular senior football. Still, while the service exists, we home viewers might as well as make use of it, much as the commentators and film crews make use of the experience gained. Friday night, I saw the first half of Port vs Knights, where the latter looked like they had a plan for the first time in a few years, while the former looked trapped by the way they'd been instructed to play. The second half of Thunder vs City was more competitive, but apart from playing spot the ex-South player, I saw nothing that would indicate a title threat. I watched the first 15 minutes or so of Eastern Lions vs Bulleen, enough to learn that Bentleigh will be fine, and Lions probably won't be. By the standard of Friday night's games, the first half of Avondale vs Oakleigh, and the bits I skimmed later on, were a revelation: fast-paced, competent, flexible, and hard football from both teams - and mistakes were punished with prejudice. The second half of Hume vs Altona Magic also had too good teams, albeit with less fluency.

Final thought

It was good to be back. There's no comparison to seeing a game in the flesh.