Queensland Roar - the last 3 matches

Just a bit of a run-down on Qld Roar’s last 3 matches in the A-League. It's a mixed bag of results: 1 win, 1 draw, 1 loss.

Qld Roar 1 Melbourne Victory 0

This match took place at Suncorp Stadium on Friday evening (16/11/07), the day before Winston & Eilen’s wedding. A few of us attended the match, & it was a good, entertaining game with end-to-end action. Qld Roar played well, & deserved to win. Scoring the goal early helped. The defence did well, though there were a couple of moments of concern where they allowed Melbourne chances which could have resulted in a goal. And on another day, those would have been goals. That said, Qld themselves had a couple of other very good chances, too. So, all things said, we went home happy with the result & the performance. Very happy in fact, as Melbourne are my least favourite A-League team.

On the way back, me, BT & Nigel had a chat in the car about the wedding the next day. Nigel had been wondering about what to include in the best man’s speech, & BT made a couple of suggestions, one of which was suggesting that “Nebuchadnezzar” be mentioned in the speech. Nigel did that!

Sydney FC 0 Qld Roar 0

A week after that, Qld travelled to Sydney & played out a goalless match with Sydney FC on Sunday evening (just days before Sydney played an exhibition with David Beckham’s LA Galaxy). I saw part of the match on Foxtel. Chances were few & far between, with both sets of defences being on top of their game. Reinaldo, typically, missed a sitter in the first half (shocking, according to BT). It was one of those games which was destined to be scoreless. Qld was not as impressive as they were against Melbourne. Then again, Sydney FC weren’t fantastic, either, so a draw was certainly fair.

Qld Roar 0 Newcastle Jets 1

Then, just this past Friday (30/11/07), Qld hosted Newcastle Jets. Qld lost 1-0, with the goal coming deep in injury time, just seconds before the full-time whistle. The result & the performance was deeply disappointing & very lamentable. In my opinion, Qld Roar went 10 steps backwards from the Melbourne game. They were so subdued & cagey, & I could not understand why. I’d say that was the worst performance at home this season.

Sure, Qld Roar have had some ordinary home games. But at least in those games, Qld did show some urgency & did create a handful of chances. Against Newcastle Jets, there was no urgency & I can only remember 1 chance, maybe 2 chances, Qld created all night. That did not count the penalty miss by Qld in the 65th minute - & that was really an awfully taken penalty. Anyway, I don’t want to dwell on that – Qld should not have been able to rely on a penalty to win. They should have shown some initiative & injected some urgency into their game. But the midfield could not keep possession for a sustained period of time, & therefore not able to create chances for the forwards.

To be fair, Newcastle Jets were just as bad as Qld Roar. They too, were abysmal & misplaced passes, & they created just 1 chance the whole game. But at least they made it count, & that, at the end, was the difference. I was very very disappointed & livid after the match & went home fuming. A 0-0 draw would have been a fair result, considering the inadequate displays by both teams, but it wasn't to be. And Qld Roar have only themselves to blame. Next game is at home against Central Coast Mariners, this coming Sunday. And they’d better improve drastically & quickly!