Perth find away luck to trounce Brisbane 4-2

Frustrated Brisbane Roar coach Frank Farina admitted “going and getting teeth pulled” wouldn’t be as painful for him as the horror defensive blunders that cruelled his side in a 4-2 loss to Perth Glory at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday.

In one of the more bizarre matches, the home side handed three goals to the Glory who licked their lips to score only their second ever win over the Roar in 12 matches, and their first since 2005.

Brisbane’s defensive debacle began after only 45 seconds, as a Josh McCloughan own goal resulted in the quickest A-League goal this season.

Then, just before half-time, midfielder Bob Malcolm lost the ball in the last line of the defence as Wayne Srhoj pounced to skip away and chip the visitors to a shock 2-0 lead.

Keeper Liam Reddy rounded off the defensive disaster, letting a floating cross slip through his fingers and over the line, which killed off the Roar’s spirited second half revival.

“I’d prefer to go to the dentist and get teeth pulled,” Farina said, when asked about the mishaps.

“We were our own worst enemy tonight. We gave them three goals, and you can’t do that.

“We fought back well in the second half. But every time we got back into the game, we shot ourselves in the foot. The mistake at the end (by Reddy) killed us off.”

Relieved Glory coach Dave Mitchell was more than happy: “They gave us a few didn’t they?

“But I think we’ve been shortchanged on several occasions this season so far, so it was nice for something to go our way tonight.

“Credit to the Roar. They kept coming at us in the second half, but we clung on and got the three points.”
The Roar fought back from 2-0 and 3-1 down in the second half through strikes from Henrique and Sergio but couldn’t draw level.

It was 3-2 with the Roar surging for an equaliser when Reddy spilled a high but nothing cross from Adriano Pellegrino in the 75th minute.

Farina, however, believed Reddy was fouled by the Glory’s Socceroo defender Chris Coyne who bumped the keeper in the back when leaping for the ball. It drew a massive boo from the 7367 crowd.

“It was a foul, there was contact,” Farina said.

Glory coach Mitchell disagreed: “I thought Liam dropped it before Coyne bumped him. And Chris was actually pushed into the keeper by another Roar player. So they fouled us.”

The Glory’s first away win this season moved them up to fourth, while Brisbane slipped to fifth.

Brisbane was severely undermanned. But despite missing Danny Tiatto, Michael Zullo, Matt McKay, Massimo Murdocca, Andrew Packer (injured), and Luke Devere, Mitch Nichols and Tommy Oar (national under-20 commitments), they probably view this as one that got away.