Six talking points from A-League Round 19

From a record regular-season crowd to the dominance of the table topping Perth Glory, Round 19 has come and gone, with some anticipated results, and one or two shocks throw in. Let’s get to some of the talking points from the latest A-League round.

Is the race for the finals over, or just getting started?
At the conclusion of Round 18, with an eight-point gap widening between sixth and seventh, you would have easily and comfortably said: right, the top six teams are decided, now it is just about where they all finish.

And then Round 19 happened.

Had the Jets lost to Melbourne on Friday, as was widely anticipated, the finals race would effectively be over (in that the seventh-placed side would need to make up three wins on the teams above them).

When Wellington nabbed a point against Melbourne, they would have been happy with that result, until about two hours later when Newcastle put in arguably their best performance of the season to put the sword to Melbourne City, and cut that gap to Wellington to just two wins.

Then, to add just a little bit of extra spice to the finals race recipe, Western Sydney went to Adelaide, rode their luck, and earned themselves a 3-1 win against the odds, to beat the top-four placed Adelaide United.

Western Sydney, full of confidence with back-to-back wins for the first time this season, would think to themselves, rightly or wrongly, if they can run the table, and fortune goes their way, why can’t they figure in the end of season finals?

Results in football are a funny thing.

One week, you usually are not as good as you think you are after a win, but nor are you always as bad as you might think you are after a loss.

Are Newcastle and Western Sydney now legitimate finals threats?

Possibly, although next weekend will be very telling, with huge matches to come for each.

Newcastle host a wounded Adelaide at MacDonald Jones Stadium, while the Wanderers host the high flying Glory at the Olympic Stadium.

However, City play Victory in the Melbourne Derby, where form usually goes out the window, while Wellington host Sydney.

So Wellington and City won’t want to drop any points, because should they do so, as is very possible in their fixtures, Newcastle and Western Sydney play the next day and could easily pounce.

While I fundamentally disagree with a top six finals system that rewards a team coming sixth and possibly not winning half their games, the system does create some interest right to the end of the final rounds.

Thanks to some surprise results this round, that interest just ramped right up.

Bring on Round 20!

It’s all about the crowds
No, a one-off domestic fixture that is well attended is not enough evidence for a call out to put an A-League team in Auckland.

But it certainly does give food for thought that there is high-demand for high quality domestic club football in New Zealand.

For the second time in the space of six days, Melbourne Victory fronted a home and away 20,000-plus crowd.

And you could tell that the players thrived on it. Again.

Crowds have been surprisingly thin over in Wellington, and I’m not sure if it is poor coverage, lack of a foot in the door, of maybe the Cake Tin stadium is not exactly conducive to strong football atmosphere, but what was clear on Friday was that 22,638 people had some sort of interest in the A-League, enough so for them to attend the game.

Step up Wellington residents.

If Auckland can get over 20,000 to watch a game involving two teams neither of which are based in that city, then surely the Wellington population can themselves rise to the challenge and go even better.

Full stands, crowds roaring, it plays its part in the great product that is football, making for a better spectacle, and something that people want to be a part of.

(Photo by Anthony Au-Yeung/Getty Images)

There is still a new Joey in town
Newcastle is indelibly linked to all things Joey, thanks to rugby league.

So it makes sense that the latest phenomenon out of the city, while not born and bred in the Hunter, bears the Joey mantle.

If we think back to the pre-season, it was met with quiet disappointment, but overall not exactly season ending hope for success, when it was announced that Joey Champness had suffered a pretty significant foot injury, and would miss the majority of the home and away season.

Newcastle would be right, they said.

Newcastle should be able to cover for a second year player who had a solid first up season, was the general consensus.

However, Friday night suggests that the loss of Joey Champness to injury, was a dagger to the heart of the Jets’ season 2018/19 hopes.

Matthew Ridenton is too often much-maligned, Mitch Austin came and went to Sydney to continue to disappoint, and while Dimi Petratos suffers pretty significant second season syndrome, Newcastle have never looked like coming close to filling the gap left by Andrew Nabbout, momentarily filled by Riley McGree last season.

So what if the player who was penciled in for a big season was Joey Champness?

On Friday night, his blistering speed and clinical finish in front of goal (two things Newcastle have lacked on a regular basis this season) were on show for all to see.

Champness scored the go-ahead goal, and assisted on the sealer. He was literally the difference.

For a Newcastle side sitting seventh, and in a scrap for finals, it turns out that the loss of Champness was even bigger than anybody could have imagined.

(Photo by Ashley Feder/Getty Images)

Roly Bonevacia rolls out the big guns
The frustrating thing about stand-out performances that almost single-handedly win a struggling team the game against quality opposition, is that if that is the first time it has happened this season, the praise for the performance is immediately met by the question: where has that been for the previous 18 rounds?

Roly Bonevacia was a man on a mission on Saturday, involved in all three goals for the Wanderers (one deflected effort himself and two assists).

Bonevacia was everywhere in the middle as well, his passing astute and precise, but his defensive efforts were solid, and he truly stood up to drag his underperforming teammates with him over the line.

His match was not perfect, and his play-acting when Isaias brushed Bonevacia’s face with his arm was, as I live-blogged at the time, pretty poor.

However, so good was Bonevacia’s game, the faking injury could not detract from his overall impact.

So the understandable question for Roly is: where has that been all season?

It was even said in commentary, by Andy Harper, that the performance against Adelaide was the example of why so many clubs were after his services before Western Sydney landed him.

Along with a fit again Alexander Baumjohann, why can’t Western Sydney believe that they can make a late run this season?

Bonevacia was a man possessed on Saturday.

Here’s hoping that Roly can back it up next week, and lead the Wanderers to their third win in a row.

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

The imperious form of Glory-ous Perth
Perhaps the kindest thing that any team did this weekend was Perth taking the foot off the pedal against Brisbane Roar on Saturday night, after potting their fourth goal in the 54th minute.

Tony Popovic, for all the accolades that come his way as a coach, is not exactly known as a coach that preaches free-flowing, open attacking football.

I’m happy to be proven wrong, but Tony has always come across as the disciplined pragmatist, akin to Sir Alex Ferguson, rather than the revolutionary master of the beautiful game, a la Pep Guardiola.

On Saturday though, Perth looked ready to aim for double digits, as they tore apart a poor Brisbane, who were coming off a fairly great performance against Sydney the weekend before.

Perth find themselves in the box-seat for the premier’s plate, and here is hoping that the A-League ensure that finishing top of the regular season table gets the plaudits that such an achievement deserves.

Of course, Poppa has history both on his side (when it comes to regular seasons) and against him (when it comes to grand finals).

Poppa coached a side to the ultimate success, continental glory, but the ACL win in the final was won over two legs.

Grand finals are won on that one day, and to date, Poppa has not been able to deliver the goods.

For the sake of Perth fans, perhaps this is the year when he rights a couple of grand final wrongs.

Your heart goes out to Tommy Oar
Yeah, as far as injuries go, the angle that Tommy Oar’s leg went to was bad.

It was really bad.

And it truly, genuinely, breaks any football supporter’s heart to see, though at this stage, seeing him walk from the field perhaps gave some hope that the awkward right angle his leg bent at, looked worse than the injury actually is.

It is hard to believe that Oar is already 27 years old.

In so many ways he still seems like that young starlet ready to light up Australian football (in a similarly haunting fashion to another injured star, Daniel Arzani).

Oar is not new on the scene either, this is his 12th year of professional football, but he still seems like the young hope of Australia.

The idea of the move to Central Coast was about Oar re-starting his career, alas, it has continued to falter.

As he limped from the field at Jubilee, you got the feeling that he is ultimately going to be a footnote in Australian football history, rather than the headline.

As he limped from the field at Jubilee, you simply felt what a shame it would be if that was the last we saw of him.