Sydney were previously league leaders until Glory disposed of them, with a decent second-half showing after a pretty ordinary opening 45.

Boss Dave Mitchell opted to experiment with the side in the absence of Wayne Srhoj, Victor Sikora and Mile Sterjovski from the first eleven.

And the experiments failed to pay off with a pretty ordinary first-half, where Sydney had the better chances, although we did seem to have most of them covered with Andy Todd & Chris Coyne really solid.

At half-time, Mitch opted to instantly bring on Sterjovski, which surprised me considering Mile spent half-time booting the ball around with the other subs.

But Mile made an impact along with Sikora who came on later. In fact it was the difference.

Jamie Coyne’s deflected cross found Scott Bulloch for a slightly fortuitous opener before Todd broke down play, set up Sikora, who played in Mile and he centred for Branko Jelic to tap in. 2-0, party in The Shed!

It was a good win against a Sydney side who I thought were really poor. Perhaps they missed Steve Corica, but they really didn’t threaten us.

So we stay fifth and with the bottom four struggling, we’ve solidified our grip on a finals berth.

But I’m hoping for more than just that, next up it’s in-form Central Coast in Gosford.

The Phoenix are pretty sh1t hot at home and haven’t lost there for something like 14 matches. Obviously, coming into the game with that record, Glory (on the back of 3 losses) would’ve taken any kind of result from the match.

But occasionally Glory promised more, with some decent chances going close, before taking the lead through Wayne Srhoj’s nice free-kick.

But in typical Glory fashion, we surrendered our advantage (and the ball whenever possible it seemed) allowing the Nix to control the final 15 minutes and equalise through Paul Ifill.

All in all, the match was a bit of a stinker. The quality on display was rather low, with Glory deciding to boycott midfield at every occasion in favour of long-balls.

The tactic had something to it, with the ball hoofed to Jelic or Sterjovski before the other free would hopefully run onto it. It worked occasionally, but too often we were caught offside doing it.

Towards the end of the first-half we did seem to have some more success and a few chances opened up, in particular Jacob Burns’ long-range effort which hit the crossbar.

After the break, it was much of the same with very little happening. Until Wayne Srhoj’s free-kick, which was well-hit but Nix gk Reece Crowther really should’ve saved.

On the topic of goalkeepers, I felt Tando Velaphi wasn’t too bad this afternoon, which is refreshing for our defence’s confidence.

Anyway, after we went up, we went back into our shell and hoofed the ball forward aimlessly. We seemed to drop back and allow them the nut and inevitably they got the goal and perhaps could’ve got more.

We almost won it late too, with Branko Jelic’s wayward finishing rearing its head again late when he might have done better with a toe-poked effort.

But one point from the dreaded NZ trip ain’t too bad. I don’t want to accept mediocrity and a claiming a point against a side who probably won’t play finals shouldn’t be a huge success but it wasn’t too bad.

The performance was still pretty ordinary in terms of creativity and style, but we’ll welcome back Victor Sikora when he’s fit.

And encouragingly, I thought Andy Todd and Chris Coyne were really solid up back. It was good to see us not gift any goals this week.

Young right-back Scott Neville, though, doesn’t look up to for me and he needs to go back to the youth team. Struggled a tad today, while Adriano Pellegrino needs to get involved more.

But there was lots of poor players today, but we got a point, at least.

Next up the international break (see ya Mile!) and then Sydney FC (finally) at home.

I took in the game, arriving just in time to get a decent spot in the shade and amongst the festivities in The Shed.

But early on things didn’t really go to plan and, to be honest, we didn’t start well and it was ominous.

Carlos Hernandez got way too much space before having a wayward crack which deflected in off Chris Coyne.

The goal kinda brought Perth to life, which was good to see and Mile Sterjovski did the best thing he’s done since returning to Oz, with a brilliant turn and strike goal to level terms after 20 minutes.

We should’ve added another before the break with wave after wave of pressure. Eugene Dadi had the clearest chance after great work by the impressive Todd Howarth on the left.

But we didn’t add to our tally and Melbourne came out in the second-half the more determined and got the job done.

Sub Nathan Elasi was afforded too much space by left-back Naum Sekulovski and he whipped in a pinpoint cross which left Tando Velaphi clutching at thin air and Hernandez producing a Cahill-esque finish. 2-1.

We couldn’t really muster much else up and to be honest, Melbourne were better than us.

We had no decent subs on the bench. Ludovic Boi I think was a bit nervous and was hardly noticed, while Andrija Jukic has quality but lacks the smarts a tad. Jelic would’ve been good off the bench.

Anyway bad signs losing to Melbourne on our home paddock. I can’t see us doing much damage come finals time. But we’ve gotta get their first. I fancy us doing that, but I can’t see us going too far beyond that.

Victor Sikora had put us ahead in the first-half, but second-half goals from Robbie Fowler and Dyron Daal gave NQF their first ever A-League home win.

But to be honest, we really need to be getting something out of fixtures like this is we’re going to challenge. It seems we’ll need home finals come finals-time, so finishing as high as possible is crucial but losses like this hurt.

At 1-0, we looked okay but typically we didn’t put them away with Branko Jelic guilty of the biggest miss. His finishing is really erratic.

NQF fought back, as they do, with Fowler taking a FK fast and catching us napping before Daal unleashed a cracker. Jeremy Brockie should’ve made it three late on as well.

It’ll be good to be back at home next week and with Andy Todd back in the side too. Boy we missed him with some clumsy, elementary errors in the last two weeks.

Jamie Coyne & Scott Neville’s collision for GCU’s winner last week and this week’s lazy play which allowed Fowler’s quick FK to catch us out.

I don’t know if coach Dave Mitchell’s got the nous to cut these things out, but we need to if we’re going to challenge this season.

Anyway next week it’s an in-form Melbourne at home on the day after Halloween. Tough game to return to winning ways, but I expect no less at home.

And BTW, when do Glory play Sydney FC. These A-League fixtures are mighty odd.

I caught the game live on Fox, and thought the lads were a bit slow to get going, although our opposition were surprisingly poor too.

Nevertheless, the Goldies took the lead through Jason Culina’s deflected free-kick which came off Scott Neville, who had a horror return to the starting side in Andy Todd’s absence.

Wayne Srhoj, in my opinion Glory’s best player all season, had our best chance of the first-half with some classy play before his shot let him down with GCU keeper Jess Vanstrattan saving low.

But once the second-half kicked off, we seemed to step up. Todd Howarth equalised after some more good work by Srhoj set up Victor Sikora. The Dutchman’s slightly deflected throughball fell nicely for Howarth who slotted under Vanstrattan.

But while I was up on my feet in the loungeroom doing fistpumps, all of a sudden, GCU went ahead again as Glory pressed that all too familiar ‘Self Destruct’ button with Jamie Coyne and Neville getting all mixed and allowing Joel Porter to set up Shane Smeltz from close-range.

Glory were robbed by another inadequate refereeing decision later on in the half, as Branko Jelic had a goal scrubbed out for a woeful offside call.

And Jelic had earlier had a fair penalty shout waved away when Kristian Rees had clearly denied him fair play on the ball with a tug inside the box.

And there was more ordinary refereeing when serial dickhead Steve Pantelidis got away with an elbow to Jacob Burns’ head.

I hate going on about the refs, but when you play so well and get denied when you clearly shouldn’t of, it’s hard not to.

The thing I took out of the game was without Mile Sterjovski we played better!

To be honest, Mile’s been ordinary this season and I’ve always thought he’s fairly overrated. Anyway, we’ve been directing alot of play through him and we were better for his absence.

I like seeing Srhoj get further forward as he can beat players while Howarth was good on the left and Sikora continues to threaten when he decides to focus on the game rather than other matters. Jelic’s shooting lets him down, but he’s dangerous enough with good service.

Down back I like Tando alot, despite his occasional f%$kup, while Chris Coyne’s been our best signing along with Andy Todd, while Naum Sekulovski’s having a solid season at left-back.

Against GCU Jamie Coyne was okay, but found out for the goal, while Scotty Neville is a player I like, but he battled on Sunday.

Anyway, next up we’ve got NQ Fury up in Townsville and considering they’ve havent won up there yet, they’ll be up and about.

But we should leave far Nth Qld with 3 points if we’re going to threaten for the title and I fancy our chances on Sunday’s evidence. That’s as long as we don’t self destruct again.

Perth Glory, of course, knocked off Adelaide United 1-0 at ME Bank Stadium on Friday night courtesy of Victor Sikora’s 79th minute goal after Eugene Dadi’s neat work.

I’ve gotta say, the place went nuts when Sikora scored. Drinks were going everywhere in the Shed and so were hugs, had by all and shared with all. It was so nuts, no one really knew who scored.

And it remained party-mode for the next 10 minutes, to the point where I didn’t even notice Andy Todd’s 89th minute red card. Perhaps that was just the booze though.

But we held on until the 94th minute for once (despite a late Travis Dodd scare), meaning we collected the 3 points and beat Adelaide for once too.

Indeed it was celebration time and what better time to celebrate than on a Friday nite.

I thought the game wasn’t too bad from the Glory although Adelaide played a bit more football in the 2nd half.

But early on Glory should’ve scored with Branko Jelic missing a couple of pretty simple opportunities. But it was positive as we were creating chances.

In the second-half though, Adelaide had a good load of possession and we needed Tando Velaphi to produce a string of good saves, particularly one from a close-range Lloyd Owusu header.

And then slightly against the run of play, Sikora played in Dadi who showed great poise to return the ball to the Dutchman who slammed in a ‘Gareth Barry Manchester derby-esque’ finish.

In my opinion I thought we played kinda better without Jacob Burns with our midfield working a bit better in terms creativity.

And Dadi’s influence on the game was obvious. Despite Jelic having 4 goals this season, I’ve never been overly impressed with him and I’d prefer to see more of Dadi.

Perhaps Dadi’s handy off the bench, but he had plenty of impact and from the start maybe we need that. But at least coach Dave Mitchell got him on the park last night.

Anyway another big 3 points for us and next up the boys have a Qld double header on the road. That’ll be a test.

I was in attendance and enjoying the frivolities of The Shed for a lovely Saturday afternoon. Free tickets for the under-15s (on school holidays), plus Robbie Fowler’s presence, the possibility of top spot, a good timeslot and some spanking weather, meant over 12,000 fans crammed in.

But in front of one of Glory’s biggest crowds in years, ref Ben Williams produced a shocker and in the end, scored NQF’s equaliser.

After a typically bright start to the game by Glory, things kinda petered out and the first-half ended scoreless, but NQF were reduced to ten men late when Ufuk Talay took a dive. As you can imagine, it was confusing in The Shed at the time, but he still got a friendly ‘Cheerio’.

Off for beers at the break, but the unusually large crowd meant catering wasn’t well…catering for such intake. Indeed, the beer queue was a slog but finally when all was sorted we settled back in to instantly see Mile Sterjovski brought down in the box.

Penalty! Up he stepped. No worries 1-0 to Glory f$ck yeh party time in the Shed. We started chanting “WE ARE TOP OF THE LEAGUE”.

The problem was, we had them down to ten men, we had a 1-0 lead, we were playing at home, yet the lads didnt seem to want to add to the tally.

It was a shame but we still had NQF’s measure, with Andy Todd, Chris Coyne and Naum Sekulovski all over any attacking threat from the Fury.

That was until the ref intervened. I simply can not understand this goal.

NQF free-kick, Tambouras header was parried skyward by GK Tando Velaphi, who decided to try and catch the ball rather than tip it over the net.

Tando then proceeded to catch the ball, before Chris Grossman pushed him beyond the line. Clear foul.

Not according to the ref, who somehow completely got it wrong. I’ve never seen a worse decision and I doubt I ever will.

I watched FoxSports coverage of the game on TV after the match and it was clearly conclusive. Despite the commentator labelling the blame on Tando, who probably did the wrong thing, but actually achieved what he was trying to do, until he got fouled.

Nevertheless, we should be able to score twice against NQF (who were pretty toothless). Dave Mitchell will cop plenty of criticism and rightfully so, I don’t like what he offers the team and we didnt push on here.

So it ended 1-1. It’s disappointing to miss the chance to go top, but hopefully the lads can work out what went wrong and sort it out next time. And, of course, next time hopefully we can get a capable ref.

Anyway, yesterdays 1-0 win at Newcastle was pretty lucky. I watched the whole match on the box, with my old skool Glory shirt on and I’ve gotta say, we got lucky.

By all reports last week’s 4-2 win at Brisbane Roar was rather fortuitous (I didnt see it as I was at the WAFL Grand Final, Im a Subi boy thru and thru so couldnt miss it).

But the recent results havent been flash performances, yet the boys return home with 6 points in the bag. Better than expected.

Against the Jets last night, we played reasonably in the first-half and created a few chances. Down the right was the most promising with some neat interplay, involving Jamie Coyne, Adriano Pellegrino and Victor Sikora occasionally. But no goals to speak of. 0-0 at half-time.

Into the second-half, I’m not sure what the problem is. But the lads just run out of gas. There was no energy and for some reason (I’m still not sure why) Dave Mitchell put Mile Sterjovski alone up front.

Perhaps he was expecting us to lose our energy (we have all season) hoping he could hold the ball up or use his speed (like he did for the penalty) but I thought the tactic was really really poor. It allowed the Jets so much more possession, but thankfully they are a typical A-League club who just aren’t very clinical and can’t execute that final ball. Although I was impressed by Patafta and Song.

Anyway, I’m not a fan of Mitchell. Eugene Dadi would have been ideal in the role of holding the ball up after the break, yet he refuses to use him.

So we got out of jail. Sikora decided to do something constructive in midfield, got angry, got the nut and took on a few players before playing nicely weighted ball in for Sterj who was terribly brought down by Jets stopper Ben Kennedy near the death.

I gotta say as harsh as it is, the Jets will never go anywhere with a keeper like Kennedy. Sterj was gonna struggle to get a decent shot away in this situation with defenders closing on him, yet Kennedy came out and was always arriving late, before taking Sterj for the penalty. Apparently Kennedy did something similar last week. Pretty average.

Anyway Sterj took the penalty and struck it in off the crossbar. 1-0 and the Jets were done.

Still a long long way to go for Perth, but points on the road are a dime a dozen. Great result, poor performance. Im concerned about Mitchell as coach, I just dont understand his tactics or moves sometimes. If sh1t turns bad, my advice to Tony Sage would be spend your money more wisely next time, on a proper coach.

The match between Perth & Gold Coast Utd ended 2-2 after we took a two-goal lead after about 15 minutes through goals from imports Branko Jelic and Victor Sikora.

Coming into the match I would’ve taken a draw with the Gold Coast (who I told a friend, where perhaps the best domestic side I’d seen on Aussie shores before). But having had a two-goal lead, it was all a bit disappointing.

The equalising goal was frustrating too, as Amaral was clearly fouled yet play went on, Gold Coast won the ball, then Amaral fouled, and Gold Coast took the FK quickly and caught us out. That’s the problem yet again, we were caught out at the end. That’s 3 matches (out of 6) this season we’ve conceded late.

Nevertheless, I was impressed by some of our play and Mile Sterjovski seems to be getting better as well as Jacob Burns and Wayne Srhoj, who look to be forming a good understanding. Jelic continues to impress as well.

Defensively I like Andy Todd and Chris Coyne but where was left-back Todd Howarth for the quick Fk late on.

Sitting now in 7th, with two away games coming up, things will be tough for the lads, so we need to get some points on the road, badly. But some of the signs are positive and there’s clearly some things we can improve on (not concede late for a start). I’m enthused.

Central Coast beat Perth 2-1 tonight in Canberra, after the Mariners went ahead from a set-piece Alex Wilkinson goal before Glory received a get-out-of-jail card when Brad Porter handballed in the box to offer Mile Sterjovski the equaliser.

But right at the death, when it seemed Glory might be the more likely to grab the points, Velaphi misreads the dewy pitch and sees a simple ball bounce over his head allowing the Mariners in for the winner.

It was comical, hapless and awful. Somehow, Glory seem to find a way to lose away from home. It’s awful. We were gifted an equaliser yet still couldn’t hold on. Purely awful. We won’t go anywhere near winning the title this season.

The performance in itself wasn’t too bad. We played okay at times and looked the more likely side in the first-half although the Mariners converted from a dead-ball situation. But we had them covered otherwise. Branko Jelic looked impressive and hit the crossbar in a luckless first-half.

In the second stanza, we dropped off a bit although so did the Mariners. It was rather dull until Porter handballed in the box and Sterjovski scored after his penalty was saved straight back to him.

Despite that fortuitous sequence of events, luck went against us as Wayne Srhoj hit the crossbar before Velaphi blew it. Somehow they find a way to lose. Awful.