The Glory fades as their Socceroos fail to excite

 
Pippinu Roar Guru

By Pippinu, 8 Aug 2009 Pippinu is a Roar Guru

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It’s not every day you see three current Socceroos joining the one A-League club during the off-season. Come to think of it, we’ve probably never seen it before. So there was a bit of interest in last night’s game with Adelaide hosting Perth.

The first point that has to be made is that none of the three Socceroos in question (playing for Perth), did anything to ensure that Pim would have double-checked his mobile to make sure he had their numbers stored.

In fairness, the whole of the Perth team played as if they had only assembled together for the first time an hour or so before kick off, particularly in that first half, where one through ball after the other was played into space with no one chasing it.

And where each series of intricate short passing found an Adelaide player around the third or fourth pass without fail.

The only goal of the game was a penalty converted by Dodd after one of the Socceroos, Coyne, was adjudged to have hung onto Cornthwaite’s shirt during a set piece. Coyne must have been wondering to himself: “Geez, I would have got away with that one in League One!”

Needless to say, Cornthwaite played the part of the dirty dobber superbly, a role he has slipped into seamlessly over the past year or so.

Jamo was the one whipping in the ball when Coyne got caught out, and his first half was a bit of a highlight for Adelaide.

He won a stack of free kicks coming down the left, and his set pieces really had the Perth defence scrambling. Make no mistake: a player like Jamo is worth goals, and he will single handedly deliver Adelaide a spot in the top 6.

The other player that warrants a special mention is Dodd.

He appeared to have a bit of a free role across midfield, bobbed up everywhere to mop up stray Perth passes (of which there were plenty), and he got better as the game wore on. At one point, Perth’s possession hit the 90 percent mark late in the game, and invariably, it was Dodd involved in the other ten percent.

On Perth’s side, I think Sikora came into it when he was shifted to the right in the second half. He inserted himself between the Jamo-Cassio axis a fair bit, and had some very good touches himself – but often his team mates were failing to read him, and that was the story of Perth’s night.

There was a bit of a similarity with the Thursday night opener, but this time it was the home team with the early goal, and who then set themselves up as spoilers for the remainder of the evening.

Perth may have had the big signings in the off-season, but Adelaide had the one player capable of turning a game with just about the best left foot in the A-League.

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