It’s a game worth a watch, very high quality despite the volume of rain that fell and delayed kick off twice.

Roar are excellent with ball retention and cutting sides open, WSW are superb on the counter attack.

Roars problem is both finishing chances and defensively keeping the back door closed, they also lost another full back to injury so we’ll be poaching Rochedale’s U16’s sometime soon lol.

Upfront Waddingham is a shadow of his cup-run self. He makes good runs but is not getting chances, not creating shot assists, and not creating space for others to do either of those. We all know why he’s there so that’s the coaching teams challenge to change.

At 2-0 up and 1 meter out Waddingham misses an open goal, this is going to haunt him and after it finished 2-2, I doubt he slept well last night. Berisha couldn’t be put down with misses like that, he kept on coming, was relentless, and Waddingham is going to have to learn that because in yet another game he was largely ineffective.

Not that goals are all on Waddingham alone, enough players had chances for a third and couldn’t take them including having rounded the keeper and only having defenders on the line to beat but failing to score (someone else not sleeping last night lol).

Overall a top quality game, WSW will drop off as the season progresses if they don’t add more to their arsenal than just counter attacking; same for Roar if they can’t find a way of converting chances – but if both address them they’re capable of finishing top this ladder; not something I thought possible pre-season.

Well deserved 👍

If Roar had a Striker they’d have won the Cup Final and be top of the league tonight.

Waddingham looks like his confidence is plummeting, Ross needs to have a look at that – young players can break quite easily.

Hell of a storm tonight though.

Jets 1, City 0 – I felt let down by jets last week as my faith in them evaporated in a bit of a drubbing up the coast. Hope they can pull this one back.

Roar v WSW – Match Postponed (in my head)

WUN 1, Nix 3 – Western look good but have that JA thing going on where good players just can’t gel. Expect that to break when they play Roar in 2 weeks.

Sydney 4, Perth 1 – Perth worked hard last week but they seriously lack quality, a Sydney return to form here.

CCM 2, Vuck 2 – hard one not to give Victory the win, but I’ll nudge a draw with a red card each (filthy Mariners!).

MacArthur 1, Adelaide 2 – likely a draw but fatigue will let Adelaide’s spring chickens in towards the end.

Roar don’t play Victory until early March, then play them again 5 weeks later. Go figure how they do scheduling.

That’s it, I’m boycotting Friday nights game. Stuart Thomas tipping Roar is nothing short of witchcraft … I’m going to go and see the Barbie movie instead (again)

😡 😡 😡

You sticking with Nix or gonna be a flight fan and support the Auckland-Kingz-Knights when they arrive???

I’ve watched football in England.

I’ve watched Doncaster Rovers play.

I’ve stood on Hartlepool Towns terrace in a biting north easterly winter.

I’ve been to 4 League Cup finals.

3 FA Cup Finals. 1 Charity Shield.

I had tickets to Heysel Stadium but had to work late so couldn’t go.

I watched Brian Clough’s European Champions.

I toured Europe with Dundee Utd.

I’ve seen Keegan, Daglish, Francis, and Shilton and more do their stuff.

I saw Billy Brenner as a coach. I saw the Snodin brothers do their stuff and remember the chants about Peter Kitchen.

I was at Hillsborough that day.

I’ve been to three England Scotland internationals.

One Saturday I was bored so went to watch Goole Town in the god-knows-what Premier League just for something to do and found 210 soul mates doing the same.

I’ve stood on the terraces of the Stretford End, The Anfield Kop, and I’ve heard the Roker Roar up close and personal.

One winters day with every match frozen off we drive three hours to watch a fourth division game.

I’ve had a season ticket at Borussia Mönchengladbach, and watched Div 6 in Germany.

I’ve watched the Hong Kong League. The ACL

And I’ve admired the 178th ranked team in the world “giving it a go” in front of 50 people and some cows.

And I started a fan group in the A League because I thought we deserved more; all while I coach in the QPL …

I’ve eaten tacos because I like tacos.

Some are bigger and better than others. But I still like tacos.

Here in Australia, there’s millions of tacos to choose from – they’ve all got their own flavour: but they’re still tacos … it’s still football.

I’m lucky; the football community has given me so much over the years as player, coach, and fan.

I’m happy to watch Lions, Olympic, Roar, the AFC, and not worry about something better – he’ll some of the games in FQ QPL1 are fantastic!!

Not every club is Madrid. Not every player is Messi.

But they’re all clubs. They’re all players.

And it’s all football.

To Me!

I’d pretty much concur with most of what you’ve said – many of the most passionate Eurosnobs tend to also follow AFL or NRL teams passionately and are often the most vocal against the A League over what it’s not, rather than what it is.

(I find that a little bit cringe tbh).

NBL is a good example; it does live on spin and positions itself as the second best league after the NBA – not remotely close to being true but the Aussie media gladly accepts it and is happy to pile on the sokkha instead. Football gets a hard go from the media, NBL doesn’t which is just anti-Australian: where the fair go in that?

But the best point I think you make is that the A League try’s too hard. Instead of being a little more relaxed, more accepting, and generally accepting of where it is (and way more less combative, both with itself and others).

If you love football it’s easy to love the A League … and the Australia Cup, NSD, NPL and all the levels beneath that down to park football. It’s just football – that (imo) is the missing link: football is fractured in this country, it doesn’t even love itself!

I hope our footballing overlords, CFG, aren’t reading this – replicating Man City’s title dominance is of course their goal and the rest of the clubs can rot away for all they care.

But back to the ladder ….

By R8 the ladder normally starts to right itself as teams start to play a broader mix of teams and the wheat & chaff separate themselves.

What happens (almost) every year is 1 side from the top 4 ends up down the bottom come seasons end, replaced by a side that had been running in the bottom 4.

(you’d get short odds on City/Roar swapping places by R27 surely).

Mid,

I get all that and I didn’t want to start a debate on all the crowds; it’s just that Suncorp and Roar have become a proxy for this debate so I wanted to give more examples

Even when we were averaging 13k it was the same thing and honestly, even 15k in that stadium looks average and wouldn’t kill the debate.

It’s well known our cows are more sensitive than yours.

Besides, the best time for QLD to have daylight savings time is in winter — it’s faaaaar too hot in summer to have one more hour of hot sun in the arvo and one less hour of cool sun in the morning.

So winter would work 😁

Agreed Suncorp does. As do other stadiums (ask Jets).

However, Ballymore will not cater for more than 8k crowds at capacity .. unless local residents have a change of heart so there’s a big decision to be made for BRFC …

That new stand was supposed to hold 3,100 when in fact only holds just over 2,500 excluding corporate seating.

Free transport is included.

The shuttle busses tend to go from places not served by trains or straightforward bus routes.

Cancelling 48 hours before was just poor management. Which to be fair the COO emailed and apologised for.

(I think they were genuinely shocked by how low the crowd was for that Sydney game and over-reacted).

Definitely not criticising Adelaide crowds.

AG

The unfortunate thing with Suncorp is the camera side has the sun behind it which you would expect meaning it then overlooks and misses the more populous members side.

What you are looking at opposite is the Stadium Members area, which pretty much sells out for NRL and the big events – the entire second tier is for members as are the three central blocks bar the first few rows.

So football supporters can’t get in to those areas because they’re reserved for rugby loving members (who sometimes show up or gift their seats to mates but rarely do show).

The other thing is the entire lower bowl of Suncorp has the same capacity as AAMI and CommBank Stadium. It’s freakin huge and even 15k look lost.

So Suncorp is less than ideal until you crack 25k when it comes in to its own – decent atmosphere, the best transport infrastructure of any Australian stadium, and a host of pubs within walking distance.

It’s a great stadium. Just needs a crowd.

Imagine if every match report on SFC started with comments about how many empty seats there were, or than they need to find a boutique stadium because the current one is too big. And then didn’t bother to talk about all the football.

For where the competition is 28k is acceptable, as is 9.7k at Suncorp … the A League hit a low and it’s struggling to find a way back.

The empty seats at Suncorp (or Allianz) are nothing to do with why we are at a low point … the football this season has been really good and some clubs – not all – are moving in the right direction. Maybe we could focus on that, and the things that we can control, and make the empty seats/pitch quality a one liner instead of the football being a one liner.

The 9,700 crowd is bigger than WSW’s average this season so if Roar should be embarrassed WSW should be burying their head in shame – Sydney is more than double the population of Brisbane and yet wanders can’t pull five figure crowds ??

(See how this works – the whole competition is in strife but if you pick on Brisbane to deflect from the poor performance of the whole competition nothing will ever get fixed. Especially those 30,000+ empty seats SFC play in front of most weeks).

Ask the RBB, they have most of the Coves tifo’s 😂

.
.
(wot …. still too soon??)

Mikes a Sydney boy, and as much as I respect his writing picking on this game was a low blow and rather pointless especially as it was a good game and the crowd was a very respectable one, and higher than eight other teams season average.

We all know Suncorp is too big, and we all know the alternative – Dolphin and Ballymore – are unsuitable (the ladies game was moved from Ballymore because of the poor quality of the playing surface there – oh the irony 😢 ).

So what’s the point, it’s not like someone in state government is going to ready about all these empty seats and suddenly build a new stadium is it?

And NSW’s should care about the national competition – it is the “seat of power” for football in this country so needs to care.

And if they don’t actually care, don’t comment on the empty seats at Suncorp and instead comment on the empty seats at NSWs venues. Can’t have it both ways.

Mac v Victory was a really entertaining game, can’t believe MacArthur sat so deep when they had the man advantage.

Mariners looked poor, defending champions, local derby. Empty seats everywhere.

MacArthur & WU, enough said. Empty seats everywhere.

Nix, poor crowd. 40,000+ empty seats.

The Sydney derby. Plenty of empty seats. And guess what, when it’s not a derby – there’s empty seats everywhere.

Why is NSW’s obsession with the empty seats at Suncorp so profound – there’s empty seats on display every weekend in NSW’s. Talk about them.

The fact that Mike has had 5 rounds to pick on every club (bar Adelaide) for having too many empty seats but waits until a Roar game – with an attendance WSW would be happy with – tells you all you need to know.

My main question is, was, and will be: why not talk about the football?

Young Waddingham was bullied out of the first half but came out firing in the second half. Talk about that.

Both Roar & Glory hit the woodwork & had a goal disallowed. Talk about that.

Roar had a new DM, the young lad did well. Talk about that.

Taggart had an off day. Talk about that.

Henry Hore was superb. Talk about that.

O’Shea outstanding. Talk about that.

The two young Aussie keepers on display were both excellent. Talk about that.

In fact talk about ALL that and more, just don’t talk about the empty seats because this is the A League – most games each week have at more than twice as many empty seats as are full … especially Sydney FC who normally have 30,000+ seats empty – why not talk about that 😂

If we talk about the good football more seats will fill; if we talk about the empty seats, more seats will empty. It’s that simple.

Once upon a time there was only one true National Football competition — and that was football pundits and fans alike bemoaning how poor Roars crowds looked at Suncorp (despite having a similar average to WSW at old Para). Looks like that’s the only football competition making a resurgence.

We need to stop this obsession especially when Sydney & WSW don’t look flash in their spanking new stadiums; nor City, Jets, Mariners, Glory in their more modestly sized stadia – only Adelaide gets a pass so yes, we need football infrastructure and in nearly every city, but we’re not getting it any time soon, so quit ya moaning folks – it’s self defeating when there’s so much good football to talk about!!

There is something they can do about the pitch at Suncorp (and Newcastle etc) and that’s start the season earlier. Most shared stadiums are pretty empty in September, and even August works better … imagine having 10 weeks of concert free venues to play in – Roar (and others) could play half their home games before the concerts start but that would take planning.

9,769 yesterday was bigger than poster-boy WSW’s home average this season – why not mention that Mike?

And 9,769 was in spite of Roar management cutting free shuttle busses 48 hours before kick off in an effort to save a few dollars. So I dispute anyone is “doing all they can” to get fans through the gates Mike.

Roar v Glory was a really entertaining game .. but you wouldn’t know it, apparently everyone from NSW’s couldn’t take their eyes off all those pesky empty seats despite seeing similar at Sydney & WSW home games. Funny world Australian football.

And P.S. next Friday Roar have a home blockbuster v WSW, a 15k crowd could be achievable but instead of doing all we can to help that happen, Roar are forced to kick off an hour earlier than NSW/VIC teams to suit NSW/VIC viewers … making it harder for fans to get there and easier to stay home and watch after a long day at work. Try writing about that Mike if the suits are indeed trying all they can to get fans to games – NSWs has always ruined national competitions, always has & always will.

See ya Friday night Lionheart – at least we only argue about the football on display 😂

Dolphins capacity couldn’t handle today’s crowd (it’s published as 10k but it’s about 9,400 in reality).

“Where did the fans go?” Is THE question – not just for Roar but the whole competition (maybe except Adelaide)