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It started out with Perth posturing admirably with the premiers. “We’ve scored as many goals as you lot”, their opening 15 minutes proclaimed, with sharp inroads made into the Sydney defensive third, Diego Castro, Adam Taggart and, yes, even Marc Warren streaming forward.
Perth’s attack is potent, a collection of deadly prongs capable of puncturing through most defensive sheathings. Sydney, though, reacted to the zeal of their opponents with a granite stillness, unflinching and unflustered, and they rode out the early period of Perth aggression, like a grizzled seafarer seeing out a short squall.
There is no need to panic, this will pass.
It did, and when Sydney found their purple rivals ease back a little, they hit them with a hammer riposte. Josh Brillante, teed up simply and beautifully by Milos Ninkovic, slammed a pile-driver into Liam Reddy’s top corner, a simply unstoppable shot the thump of which sent an invigorating jolt to the gut of everyone who heard it.
It was just his second A-League goal – his first was an equally visceral thunderbolt, it seems this is the only type of goal he scores – and it was a most emphatic put-down, disquieting Perth’s early pugnacity.
George Foreman – before he was selling sandwich presses on late-night infomercials – was once the most feared power-puncher in the heavyweight division; just the sight of him hitting the heavy bag was awesome. His opponents would begin the fight dancing around Foreman, jabbing and probing, fuelled by a sense of incredulity as to Foreman’s fabled stone hands.
It was only when Foreman landed a punch that his opponents fully realised to what hellish new degree of suffering they were in for, what fantastic new levels of trauma would now be inflicted, the realisation etched on their faces when they felt the full inhuman force of the first blow. This is how Perth looked, after Brillante’s haymaker, a mismatch suddenly stripped of their initial confidence and brought devastatingly down to earth.
Sydney flexed. Their transitions from defence into attack were slick, in spite of the horridly friable pitch, a loamy arrangement of moss more than it was a suitable playing surface. Milos Ninkovic was superlative, greasing his teammates’ paths up the field. Alex Brosque and Bobo laid-off stern forward passes softly and accurately, and the full backs rushed forward at the perfect moments. A quite sumptuous sequence that saw Rhyan Grant saunter from box to box, combining with Brosque and Filip Holosko, ended with Reddy making a crucial low save to Bobo’s shot. It would have been one of the team-goals of the season, if not for Reddy’s fingertips.
Then, Jordy Buijs began a driving run up the middle, combining with Brosque, bursting through into the box, and bundling the ball past Reddy. 2-0 to Sydney, or was it? Peter Green, the referee, was forced to stifle Buijs’s celebrations, and confer with his linesman.
Apparently Bobo was, from an offside position, interfering with play. It was a dishevelled moment, and it was palmed off to the video referee. On the replays, it did indeed look as though Bobo had impeded a Perth defender, but the VAR, eventually, decided that the Brazilian’s input was minimal enough to overturn the ruling on the field, and awarded the goal. So, yes, eventually it was 2-0.
Kenny Lowe was apoplectic, like a marionette whose master has suffered some sort of hand spasm. Perth mustered a few breathless moments in reply to this sudden widening of the deficit, forcing some desperate last-second blocks and clearances from the Sydney defenders. But they overextended, and Sydney had not finished their plunder in the opening half.
Buijs, again in a rather advanced position, squared the ball to Brandon O’Neill, who clipped a cross into that fleeting space between defence and goalkeeper. Holosko rushed into meet the ball, a fraction of a second before Reddy’s bunched fists arrived, heading the ball inside the post. 3-0, but again, the flag was up; offside, apparently.
A disallowed goal, so the matter was again referred to the VAR, and again, he was forced to overturn the decision, as Holosko was clearly level when O’Neill’s cross was made. A fine, brave header was justly rewarded, and Sydney had a 3-0 halftime lead. This was high-stakes, high-tech modern football, and Sydney were enjoying the spoils. The whistle drew a thrilling half to a close.
The best of Perth’s post-halftime response saw Andy Keogh glance a header off the outside of the post, from a wicked cross from Lucian Goian. But Sydney didn’t take long to reassert themselves, and even with the game all but won, we saw Ninkovic twice charging back on defence, disrupting and dispossessing Perth attackers – he truly is the most hard-working, multi-faceted star in the league.
To return to the boxing analogy, Sydney, aware that they were well ahead on points, simply controlled things, defending and stifling, occasional landing a telling blow, taking us now from power-punching of Foreman to the cerebral authority of, say, Wladimir Klitschko.
The formula that has made Sydney one of the A-League’s most dominant ever premiers was kept to by Graham Arnold, when Holosko was substituted, as he usually is, for the fresh athleticism and dribbling of Bernie Ibini.
Ibini nearly scored within minutes of coming on, bustling the ball onto the post after rushing through the Perth defence – a term used lightly – in tandem with Grant on the right. Arnold was baying for more on the sideline, relentlessly urging his team to inflict further humiliation. If not for Reddy, they surely would have.
Perth were offering barely anything of note going forward now, almost resigned to their defeat. They are a glass cannon of a team, and they were duly shattered by Sydney.
Theirs has been a campaign built on a brittle foundation, and this match was proof that, when the gauntlet of the finals arrives, you can’t go far with a defence as poor as theirs. Their trophy drought – apparently 4771 days long, stretching back to the NSL – continues.
Sydney’s two-week break has not dulled their resolve, and their march this season now resembles William Tecumseh Sherman’s march to the sea, in the late years of the American Civil War. Sherman’s great blue army, as he promised, “made Georgia howl”, trashing cities on their way across the state toward the port of Savannah.
Arnold’s blue army have likewise rampaged their way through the league to the grand final. Sherman left Atlanta smouldering in his wake, and Sydney have left the Glory similarly ravaged. “We’ll get the job done next week.” said Brosque after the game. It will take something miraculous from either Roar or the Victory to stop them from doing just that.