Hi Secret Scout, sorry about belated reply, very busy working yesterday..
In response to your comments –
Para 1 – yes indeed.
Para 2 – huge generalisation. Do you personally know “most women in football”? If not, then your statement is foolish.
Para 3 – certainly EH’s behaviour should be looked at and quite possibly sanctioned. As to your further extrapolations about Sam Kerr; I would suggest that we wait for the court case to get some idea of what actually happened and why, and then discuss repercussions. As it is, we actually reliably know nothing.

I think the other reason may be that Vine is the player by far most likely to score. Poor Ibini has not been able to buy a goal, even had a penalty saved. Hawkesby’s shooting radar has not reset this season – goodness knows what went wrong at Brighton. And the younger players just don’t have the experience and ruthlessness to be good finishers [yet].

And a pulsating finish to the ALW regular season!

I was at the SFC – Melbourne Victory game with yet another excellent Sunday afternoon crowd at Leichhardt. It was a much better balanced game than the final 0-4 score would suggest, but as so often this season, Sydney’s finishing was wayward, and this time their team was physically overwhelmed by the older and stronger Victory players.

Still, a great season for SFC. Ante Juric’s planning must have been badly upset by the season ending injuries to Tobin and Worts, and further disrupted by call ups to junior Australian teams, and lots of further less severe injuries. He brought in a succession of amazingly young players, and somehow the youngest team in the league maintained cohesion and just fell short of the premiership; an excellent job by the Sydney coaching staff.

The finals should be exciting. I would think every team in the 6 is capable of beating any other on their day. Of course I hope for SFC to win, but they will need to be a lot more ruthless at actually scoring off the large number of chances they make.

I’d like to see her continue to start in the City team; and it is plausible she will do so. She is in ahead of Chloe Kelly because she is playing better than Kelly. I want to see her continue to be so good that she is undroppable.

What rubbish!
Why would we expect to get an “easy draw” in any finals tournament?
Even without Sam Kerr, we should have a good enough squad to have a decent go against any team in the world.
After the WWC I am less worried about our opponents than whether TG picks the right squad, and about how he manages the squad through the tournament.

I don’t think your comment about the ALW and imports applies so much this season. Certainly Western United are top of the table with Hannah Keane [USA] very effectively leading the line, but they were beaten last week by Sydney. And Sydney are playing a lot of very young Australians, with a few experienced players, and imports [Jordan Thompson in defence is a regular; Fiona Worts in attack has a long term injury].

I think the story with Arnie’s comments is that he talks and acts purely from the perspective of the role he has at the time. So as SFC coach he did and said what he thought was necessary to win trophies. His perspective as national coach is understandably quite different. Irritating, but understandable.

Agreed. I have a life other than football. I make time to watch the SFC women’s and men’s games, either in person or on Paramount+. I occasionally watch another game in full, but usually I catch up with highlights and mini-matches.
So scheduling games simultaneously is a non-problem to me.

I wonder whether the SMH report so little because they feel that their commercial interest in League and Union broadcasting might be threatened by the A League – Union in particular?

I agree re lack of consistency. No wonder players can’t make sense of why they have been sent off when equally bad or worse tackles are not punished.

I’m with you on that; surely the point of VAR is to ask the on field ref to review, not inevitably change the decision.

Unfortunately JGR’s red was arguably correct. Some posters here are suggesting that there was no intent [“not malicious”], and so no red. The laws no longer make any mention of intent in deciding whether there is an offence, and if so, what is the gravity of the offence.

And how do you tell whether it’s a yellow or red card? This extract is from the “guidance to referees” addendum to the current laws of the game.

“Reckless” means that the player has acted with complete disregard to the danger to, or consequences for, his opponent.
• A player who plays in a reckless manner must be cautioned
“Using excessive force” means that the player has far exceeded the necessary use of force and is in danger of injuring his opponent.
• A player who uses excessive force must be sent off

So I presume that Adam Kersey has looked at the replay and decided that JGR has used excessive force; a quite understandable decision from the replays I saw.

I do agree that VAR is a pain, but I am not nostalgic for the days of Thierry Henry’s handball goal against the Irish, or the MV off side goal in the GF against the Jets.

Certainly TG continuing to select Emily van Egmond makes one wonder about what he sees when he watches a game.
At least he put Heyman on from the start, a proper striker who understands which runs to make, and how to get in front of a defender to get to a cross first. Kerr obviously knows all this; no-one else in the squad does.
Logarzo has come into really good form in the ALW and I reckon she is worth a place in the 18, certainly ahead of EVE and Yallop.

Yep. He may not have the trophies, but he dragged Napoli to the scudetto, and Argentina to the 1986 World Cup, in an era when defenders committed legal mayhem on the field.

And Messi over C Ronaldo. C Ronaldo is amazing, but I find him intensely irritating because he is so self absorbed in a game which is won by a team. Messi on the other hand works for the team, and that was exemplified when Argentina won in Qatar.

There are so many good and some great Matildas playing in top quality leagues that they have to have a good chance in any tournament.
Of course, TG can stuff it up again with nonsensical selections, and poor squad management within games and across a tournament.
At least there are fewer games in the Olympics so less chance of completely exhausting the repetitively picked players.

She is excellent. Good control, deceptively quick and elusive, locked in as defensive midfielder for years to come.

I had great doubts about Tony G’s competence through the WWC; in particular, the way he kept the same players constantly on the field until the team that played the semi was worn out.

And last night’s game made me feel that I could do a much better job of picking the team than he does….

Perhaps Gary van Egmond has some compromising photos of TG? But really, Emily is no longer worth a place in the team. She is not a defensive midfielder, she is not an attacking midfielder, and she is certainly not a replacement for Kerr.
I would have had Heyman on from the start instead. She is fit, in excellent scoring form, and she is an actual striker.

I also wonder when Wheeler will get a go instead of Gorry. Gorry runs and runs, but much of her passing is straight to the opposition, her shooting is reliably non-threatening, and she fouls a lot.

The really bright spot is Fowler. We saw her deliver deadly dipping crosses equally easily with both feet, we saw her track back effectively in defence, and her goal was a masterclass in throwing defenders and goalkeeper off balance. Perhaps her lack of starting time at Manchester City is a blessing for the Matildas, as she is here not having been overworked.

I agree with the broad thrust of your article, which I take to be something like – “Don’t add another layer of complication and confusion to a system which could and should be quite good enough if properly applied”.
However, the other posters who have told of their experiences with blue cards used purely for dissent have made me think again. Having refereed, coached and played, I have seen a lot of bad treatment of referees and other officials. I have wondered at times why on earth a ref would come back for more. If blue cards for dissent with 5 or 10 minutes consequent time out make players and sideline coaches more respectful, then that is a measure worth considering.
And as to how to define dissent? It’s like the US Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart said in 1964 in regard to pornography – “I know it when I see it”. It is reasonable to allow a ref to judge when she or he is being unreasonably abused. And the great thing about a blue card is that it’s a short term sanction, so the player has a chance to calm down, rather than being at risk of total expulsion for what is hopefully just a short term loss of control.
Blue cards for tactical fouls though? No way, yellows every time. They are so against the spirit of the game.

Aah, yes….thanks.

I wish I didn’t have to ask, but I do – who is AP?

Wood’s miss was not random, it was poor technique. He tried to get around the ball with the inside of his right foot when the correct option was to use his left, or the outside of his right.
While there is a lot to admire about Wood’s work rate, attitude and intelligence, his technical failings mean he is always going to be frustratingly inadequate as a striker.

Mark Rudan is ascribing a remarkable competence to those running the conspiracy against WSW; remarkable in that they are not clever enough to run the A League without recurrent stuff-ups, yet they are able to keep secret a complex conspiracy which must necessarily involve many people.

The other possibility of course is that Mark Rudan is expressing paranoid delusions. Somehow I think this is the more plausible explanation.

Actually, fewer critics I think. The Australian defence had done amazingly well at intercepting and blocking crosses up to that point.
I don’t blame the poor sod, just a poor decision. We’ve all made those.

Nor me

The neutral watching Socceroos v Indonesia would be right to think that Indonesian football was the better standard.
Credit to Arnie – he is getting results with as poor a squad as I can remember since prior to the “golden generation”.
And also credit to the squad for playing above themselves; not in terms of their limited skills, but in terms of concentration and focus.

Having seen South Korea prevail against the Saudis this morning, objectively the Socceroos are cooked. But this team may yet scrape and struggle past another better opponent.

Silvera was pretty poor, Metcalfe and O’Neill not good.
But it doesn’t matter what the rest of Irvine’s game was like, the goal was excellent.
The turn to set it up was really clever, and then he was quick enough to get the toe poke in before anyone else could stop him.
This current Socceroos team is struggling to make chances, let alone score from them. Irvine is worth his weight in gold for his sharpness in front of goal.

I was at the Friday night Combank games, and the Saturday and Sunday games at Allianz [although I left after the women’s game on Sunday – 3 nights in a row of getting to bed at midnight is too much for me these days].

MAC v WUN was great with Davila and Penha obviously standouts.
I was surprised at the low WSW fan turnout – until my brother and I figured out it was a WSW away game! As SFC fans we wanted both teams to lose, but ended up impressed with the Wanderers win.
Great to see CCM come back against an impressive VIC.
ADU deserving to beat SFC, Ibusuki showing what Sydney are missing at the point of attack. Sydney still very much a work in progress, and there is a big question as to whether Talay has the pieces he needs to get much out of this season.
And Sunday was different again. There is no doubt that the crowds for the women’s games are different post WWC, so many kids. I had to strongly suggest to my brother that the language he uses to advise the ref and opposition is not appropriate for this crowd. Ante Juric is still juggling the team to try to get some attacking coherence, but Vine’s goal thrilled the crowd, and the defence is very good, with Whyman very strong in goals.

And the Unite Round concept? It’s obviously an attempt to salvage something from the wreckage of the fixed grand final concept, and I can’t see that it will last. But I had a great time, and I will make the most of next year as well.