Glory Hold Sheepshaggers

By: Ben | November 8th, 2009

sheepshagger Perth Glory will head back from the long trip to New Zealand relatively happy after a 1-1 draw with the Wellington Phoenix on Sunday.

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.