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You often hear people say that you shouldn’t read too much into pre-season results. It’s a fair point: coaches and managers often experiment with tactics and youngsters, while the players are testing out their fitness.
But the goings on at new Hyundai A-League franchise North Queensland Fury in their pre-season should cause alarm.
And the reason for concern isn’t the fact that the Fury have lost all three of their pre-season matches against A-League opposition.
Nor is it that they have failed to score in four of their five pre-season matches, with their only goals coming against Queensland State League side Capricorn Cougars.
The real worry is Fury coach Ian Ferguson’s decision to play 39-year-old assistant coach Stewart Petrie on three separate occasions in pre-season matches.
Petrie won’t be signing an A-League playing contract with the Fury and actually ended his Australian domestic playing career back in 2007 with the Central Coast Mariners. He has moved onto management after a brief coaching stint in his native Scotland with Ross County.
So why would Ferguson be playing Petrie? What is the point of the exercise?
The immediate response from Fury management would be that they are short on options and have been forced into the situation due to a number of problems, including injuries to Robbie Fowler and Ufuk Talay, national team duties for Jeremy Brockie, and the recent unexpected defection by Brazilian Felipe.
But Fowler and Talay have been injured for some time now, and Brockie, as a regular All Whites international, was always going to the Confederations Cup with New Zealand, so they had time to organize suitable replacements such as trialists or youngsters.
Also, while the Felipe situation is unfortunate, it’s a concern that a similar thing has happened to the Fury twice before with Cassio and Jade North. Perhaps the Fury could take a leaf out of fellow new boys Gold Coast United’s book after they forced All Whites striker Shane Smeltz to stay at the club despite the lure of a contract in Turkey’s Super Lig.
But returning to the original point, as I previously mentioned, isn’t the pre-season all about the coach experimenting?
So why experiment with someone who you are not going to sign? Why not trial a youngster or a potential injury-replacement player?
Again, the Fury might respond by saying they have been trialling goalkeeper Paul Henderson and Fijian striker Roy Krishna, and recently had a long list of young trialists at the club, including Ramone Close and Kieran Gonzalez, but opted to let them move on as they didn’t think they were up to the standard required and were looking for other players with 19 of their 23 squad spots already filled.
Fair enough, but why close the book on the youngsters? Why not move onto the next budding talent?
There’s plenty of promising young Australian footballers who are out there dying for an opportunity at A-League level and who would’ve loved a crack at one game with the Fury, let alone the three Petrie has played.
Another cause for concern at the Fury is that I’ve been reliably informed the club won’t be fielding a National Youth League side in their inaugural season.
Perhaps this is the reason Ferguson has seemingly ‘closed the book’ on the youngsters with only one under-20 player, 18-year-old attacker Osama Malik, signed in his current squad.
The fact of the matter is the Fury should be looking at their options, such as youngsters or potential injury-replacement players.
Again, they need to look at the example of rivals Gold Coast United, who fielded a number of young trialists in the friendly between the two sides in Robina which the hosts won 2-0 earlier this week.
United seem to unveiled a couple of gems during their pre-season in 19-year-old Ivory Coast defender Adama Traore, African-born Gol Gol Mebrahtu, young Aussie midfielder Mitch Bevan (who turned the game against the Fury as a substitute) and Steve Lustica (who scored United’s second goal against the Fury).
As much as it would anger the Fury, they need to take heed of Gold Coast’s example with youth.
Indeed, North Queensland, as a brand new franchise, are four years behind the other A-League clubs, so in assessing the Fury’s progress it’s natural to compare them with fellow new boys Gold Coast United.
And such comparisons have gone on to stir a fierce rivalry between the two new clubs, with Gold Coast seemingly ‘bullying’ their northern enemies, which has in turn meant neutrals have developed a ‘soft-spot’ for the Fury.
But the reality is, ignoring the cushion of the neutral’s ‘soft-spot’, the signs aren’t good for the Fury.
The New Zealand Knights, the A-League’s only failed franchise, began in similar circumstances to North Queensland, with an uninspired transfer crusade (bar Fowler) followed by a poor pre-season which led them to fail to capture the imagination of their local market with uncompetitive football.
But again, it would be wrong to suggest the Fury could follow in the Knights’ footsteps based on pre-season results, but the signs aren’t good for a club, four years behind the rest, wasting time playing around with retired 39-year-olds.
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