Newcastle Jets vs. Perth Glory – Energy Australia Stadium
January 18, 2008
Update: For Match Report scroll down.
Just some last minute updates before the match, so here we go.
A-LEAGUE NEWS:
Seems Song can pick out a pass reasonably well, he also has a decent amount of pace on his legs too. Though, keep in mind this was taken from Under 20’s footage against mostly Korean opposition. The A-League is obviously more physical than Under 20’s football in Korea and he will have to work in much, much more narrow quarters. He also won’t necessarily have the time to look up before getting smashed by a Muscat or an Ogster or a Salley. He’ll have stellar performances against Perth, Wellington and Melbourne though considering how at any given time their defense will fall apart.
Or he might go into the Jorge Drovandi way and get released after about 9 rounds with an over-hyped tag and 1 appearance as a 75th minute substiture against Perth.
He still needs international clearance though and hasn’t been registered on the team sheet so we probably won’t see him against Perth today.
I’ll update this post with the matchday report you know, after the match.
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NEWCASTLE UNITED JETS: 2
PERTH GLORY FOOTBALL CLUB: 1
Statistics
Full time at the Energy Australia stadium, a pretty average game. Newcastle now have a goal difference of 4. If you’re a Jets fan and you’re wondering how you can immediately win the title; Sydney needs to lose or draw against Melbourne – If Sydney win they could possibly win the title depending on the other results. Same goes for the Coast against Wellington and also with the Roar and Adelaide. Pretty straightforward if you think about it.
The national team trinity of Arnold, Baan and of course Pim Verbeek were present at the game presumably figuring out the “10% that’s probably going to be filled by Neill and Cahill” rest of the Socceroos squad. Simon Hill and Robbie Slater/ The Aussie Tyler and Gray (even though Hill is a pom) were talking about nicknames for Pim. One of them was “Guus Lite.”
Other notorali at the game included some scouts from FC Twente (as Simon Hill says) Enskewdeghe, the club Wilkshire’s at. Other pre-match news include the unofficial and unsourced but inevitable departures of both “Super” Mario Jardel and Denni Rocha dos Santos. Constantine seems to have given up on Jardel seeing as he’s scored no goals in the 11 forced sub appearances – you know Kossie, Zdrillic hasn’t scored once in about 983 appearances. Denni though comes as a bit of a surprise though, he wasn’t a bad player he was just extremely extremely average. Tarek has a new haircut also.
On to the match then. “The other Dutchie” James Holland looked great early on in the game with some nice touches and an early chance. At the beginning it was a niggly-fouly sort of your typical English Championship type start. Then there was an odd commentary moment when Robbie Slater called Costa Rica an island in South America, hm. Noel Spencer had an early shot from a good position.
Then Matty Thompson ran up the left and did a dribbly sort of thing going past Tyler Simpson floating in a great hanging cross. Joel Griffiths was there and guess what, he scored. I would say that it was a great run from Joel but honestly he was just standing there with nobody marking him.
Unintentional handball by a Newcastle player some minutes later which is debatable for a penalty or not. I think it was North but he was looking away from the ball and was unaware of the location. Couple yellow cards for the Newcastle kids for doing young player tackles we see all too much. Interesting fact Dave Mitchell is now a hobo.
Durante slipped on the greasy surface which we saw alot of this game as Energy Australia stadium doubles as a fat camp (Jardel leaks grease). Though this slip led to a chance for Niky Rukavystya who wasted it.
Then Rizzo tackled Elrich because honestly Rizzo was jealous of his awesome haircut. No malice in the tackle but in true A-League fashion a scuffle broke out between the Newcastle and Perth players.
Nicky Rizzo in the end got a Red. You could see on the replay that the Riz was going to initially get a yellow but because he basically started said scuffle and then preceded to make fun referee Michael Hester’s head and chin fat he got a red.
Then Harnwell teleported from the defensive third of the pitch into the final third of the pitch and scored from a decent corner which was flicked on by Topor-Stanley. Half time.
Other than an awesome Topor-Stanley airkick akin to that of the Van Persie airkick the majority of the second half played like this:
Attendance was announced as a 16212 strong crowd which makes up for Perth’s crowds by about 16188 people. Bridge scored in the 64th minute from a Zola like pass from Hearfield which when about 3 metres into the empty space between the backs which Bridge ran on. His goal drought is over which is good from a Sydney fan’s perspective (HE’S OURS AFTER THIS SEASON probably). Both Djulbic and Holland (Man of the Match) both proceeded to miss free chances and the game subsequently ended. It was an average match which counted for everything. Only major itch was that the final ball wasn’t good enough.
See what I did there. I’ll probably only report on the Coast – Wellington briefly tommorow. I’ll see it as my duty to fully report on at least two fixtures each round and it’ll probably be the Sydney game and another one – although for this round it’ll probably be wise to report on the Roar/Reds game.
Until tommorow, cheers.
