My very biased minute by minute analysis

4th – Murdocca passes back to Reddy, Thompson has a fair chance to score
7th – Moore pulls off a risky hold in the box
9th – I thought Kruse was going to pass the ball off to Reinaldo, but what a goal
10th – Marcinho takes a shot, nice save from Theoklitos
17th – Seo goes down by Hernandez, not his fault though. Every times Seo goes down, the crowd is worried
18th – Marcinho to Ognenovski shots. Brebner blocks well.
11 shots to 1, this is the Roars game so far
21st – It takes four players to get the ball out of the danger area – teamwork
25th – McKay hits the outside of the net, the crowd is on their feet
28th – Thompson and Moore jostle inside the box. Moore injured
31st – Moore comes off. Griffin on. Tim (my older brother) and I swear profusely. We both hate Griffin (arrogant and useless)
34th – Kruse down. Ball not put out for a while. Roar kicks out. Melbourne not chivalrous. Keep the ball within the team, not doing the usual pass back to the opposition keeper.
35th – Griffin doesn’t know how to do a simple step over
37th – Caceres only has Reddy to beat, but shot goes sailing over the goal
39th – Marcinho to take the foul. I’m worried. Thankfully, it’s at least on target.
43rd – Ognenovski takes a shot from almost halfway. If that had gone in. . . . . . .
45th – Griffin almost scores for Melbourne

HALF TIME

47th – I come back from buying drinks and not that Love has come on. I’m a bit worried; I’ve seen what he can do
49th – Williams overrules his assistants call. Hmm.
50th – Packer gets a yellow card and fires up over it. Bit of push and shove in the box between Ognenovski and Allsopp. Even after Williams has words to them, it continues
52nd – Marcinho goes down – card to Vasilevski, only Victory player to get carded
53rd – Kemp takes Kruse down, this continues throughout half
54th – McLaren gets carded, fairly I believe.
58th – After a nice feed from Thompson, Allsopp would have done well if not put off by Reddy
59th – Seo takes a shot, but it lacks to power we saw from him in the first season
63rd – Kruse goes down near the box. Caceres does the same thing down the other end. Nothing from Ben Williams
64th – Kruse hit the post L
67th – McLaren collides with Pantelidis; the game is getting very aggressive.
68th – Kemp is booed off by the home crowd
73rd – Marcinho walks away from kick, not realizing that it’s him to come off. I’m looking forward to seeing what Minniecon can do
75th – Allsopp goes down, Griffin get a yellow. Yet Williams is a mile away, still worried about the tussle Reinaldo was involved in
77th – Hernandez thunders the ball into the post. Reddy remained stationary – would have been a goal if just a little to the side
78th – McKay goes down. His mother jumps up
81st – Lynch must remain on the sideline for about three minutes
84th – I give Kruse a standing ovation (he’s one of my favourite players)
86th – This is where the Roar usually let it go. Tim says “Well, at least we’ll get one point”
90th – 4 minutes of extra time! Remember what happened last time we got a huge amount of injury time??
95th – Game over. Relief! Joy! Plus 88 more emotions!


THINGS I NOTICED THROUGHOUT THE MATCH

Most of the Roar team is participating in Movember, including Stuart McLarens weird little cheek things and Sasa Ognenovski and his Ivan Milat chops. Congratulations boys. Some of the Melbourne players were also supporting the event. I wouldn’t want to come across Archie Thompson in a dark alley at night when he’s sporting that moustache

Frank Farina could power Suncorp Stadium if you hooked his jaw up to a generator. Watch him on TV during the games. He’s always chewing gum, but he was going overtime on Friday night
Kruse and Marcinho kept switching sides of the field

Even though we were about five minutes late arriving to the game, there was still a huge line up of people outside

This was definitely the most vocal and enthused crowd I have seen in all three seasons

I absolutely love watching Liam Reddy celebrate his teammates scoring a goal. He never gets to, and is often seen as the villain when he lets goals through, even though more often than not it is because of a poor defensive line

M’n’M were mighty quite, and both seemed a bit off their game

Every game of the Hyundai A-League I watch, there is always some lady screaming just under the camera, Geez it annoys me

Kruse leaves the opposition wondering what happened sometimes with his stepovers

The commentators seriously need to SHUT UP sometimes

Griffin should not have slotted directly into Moore’s role. Seo or Packer should have been pushed into central defence, as they would have been better suited to taking on Archie Thompson

Ben Williams needs to learn what an advantage play actually is

Massimo Murdocca has some speed, and Seo does too.

Vargas is a damn good player. He had me laughing when he tried to catch Reinaldo offside
Marcinho is useless off a dead ball, especially with his corners

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  17207 people turned up. Good on us

What is with the defense and their diving headers? All it ends up doing is puts them on the ground, unable to do anything useful (and legal) if their header doesn’t work out the way they planned

Kruse is getting hacked up and down the field. Poor kid

Liam Reddy could almost score a goal from some of his kicks. A bit of his father shining through there

Ben Williams obviously failed Maths in school, not being able to realise the difference between four and five minutes

And finally, although Kruse was very close, I give man of the match points to Andy Packer

Oh, and Hamish. I spent half time looking for a man with a frangipani behind his ear, but could not find one.