Despite an impressive goal to Blake Powell, the Central Coast Mariners suffered a narrow 2-1 loss to Brisbane Roar at Central Coast Stadium.
Central Coast Mariners 1 (Powell 63’) Brisbane Roar 2 (Holman 23’, McKay 54’)
The run down
The Mariners and Roar played out an end-to-end match on a hot and humid Saturday evening in Gosford where a spot in the top six was up for grabs.
Daniel De Silva looked the most likely Mariner to create a goal in the early stages, several times tearing apart the defence with his runs into the front third and precision play making. Solid in the midfield with him were Jacob Melling and Tom Hiariej who won numerous challenges against the Roar’s middle men.
Mid-way through the first half the game took a shock turn when against the run of play, the Roar pounced on some loose passing at the back by the Mariners, Brett Holman capitalised to make it 1-0.
The game then opened up and Lachlan Wales sprung into action, racing past his defender and chipping a menacing ball into the box, which just cleared the heads of several Mariners’ attackers in the box. Soon after, Wales whipped in a clever curling corner, which eventually found De Silva who was unlucky in judging the flight of the ball only just misconnecting his shot.
Despite coming out from the sheds a goal down, the Mariners started positively and immediately began to attack the Roar’s goal. Clever interplay up front created a few promising chances though the Roar managed to hold their lead.
The game took another shock turn when early in the second half Brisbane doubled their lead. The Mariners gave up possession cheaply in front of their own box, this time Matt Mckay made the most of it.
Going behind a second goal sprung the Mariners to life who responded with positive and aggressive play. It paid off when some individual brilliance from Blake Powell resulted in the Yellow & Navy’s first goal to get them back in the match.
Full of confidence, the Mariners took control of the game, with Jake McGing and Kwabena Appiah playing in threatening balls down the right flank which were just denied by a desperate Roar defence.
With humidity slowing the game down in the dying stages, the Mariners looked to their substitutes to break open the Roar defence and grab an equaliser. Trent Buhagiar’s fresh legs looked to have made the difference when he was found in space down the wing but his low cross was just too heavy and beat everybody.
Mariners’ keeper Kennedy made a late save to keep the Mariners in the hunt and despite some late chances to the Mariners, Brisbane maintained their lead and eventually won 2-1.
The Mariners finished the game with 10 men after Brama was shown red for his challenge on Cory Gameiro and will miss next Saturday’s home game against the Western Sydney Wanderers.
Goals
23’ HOLMAN (0-1): Against the run of play the Mariners failed to clear their line and lost the ball cheaply. Holman was waiting at the edge of the box and tucked his shot into the bottom corner.
54’ MCKAY (0-2): The Mariners gave away possession cheaply on the edge of their own box and Mckay was gifted a soft goal in the second half.
63’ POWELL (1-2): Brama started the move with a beautiful pass to free up Wales, who dribbled towards goal drawing in the defenders before sliding a pass to Powell who beat his defender and smashed it home from a tough angle.
Paolo in the press
“You’re going lose a football game any day of the week [by giving balls like that away] we weren’t at our best tonight I think that was obvious. We had some moments, giving away those goals was extremely disappointing.
“No just not selected [Andrew Hoole], Trent has been training well, Lachie has been doing great. Daniel is back in. No particular reason, just not selected.
“We’re aware that we need to do better, we’ve had some good performances in recent weeks. We have matched up against the top teams. Lost to Newcastle after dominating the whole game before the red card. Then the other three games against Sydney, Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory, we are really disappointed we didn’t get more points to show for it. We will keep working hard, we have a tough game next week against the Wanderers, got a couple of boys missing, opportunities for other players, we will keep fighting.
“Lachie is still a young kid and still probably not at the peak level of fitness needed for A-League, he is getting better at it. Kabsy, you know he runs so hard early on that you sort of know that there is going to come a time when you are going to need to change him. We didn’t plan for Josh to come off so early as well.
“We probably would have used the subs a bit differently but they are things you can’t control and you try and deal with them as best as you can at that moment.
Central Coast Mariners: 1.Ben KENNEDY(gk), 3.Josh ROSE (2.Storm ROUX 65’), 4.Jake McGING, 5.Antony GOLEC, 6.Tom HIARIEJ, 8.Blake POWELL, 10. Danny De SILVA, 13. Kwabena APPIAH (12.Trent BUHAGIAR 75’), 15. Alan BARO, 22.Jacob MELLING (23.Wout BRAMA 45’), 24.Lachlan WALES
Substitutes not used: 18.Tom GLOVER(gk), 27.Petros SKAPETIS
Yellow cards: Baro 53’, McGing 83’
Red Cards: Brama 90+2’
Brisbane Roar FC: 21.Jamie YOUNG(gk), 5.Corey BROWN, 6.Avram PAPADOPOULOS, 7.Thomas KRISTENSEN (16.Mitchell OXBORROW 8’), 9.Massimo MACCARONE, 10.Brett HOLMAN, 13.Jade NORTH (14.Daniel BOWLES 68’), 17.Matthew MCKAY, 19.Jack HINGERT, 22. Eric BAUTHEAC, 36.Daniel LECK (11.Corey GAMEIRO 75’)
Substitutes not used: 20.Shannon BRADY, 31.Brendan WHITE (gk)
Yellow cards: Brown 64’
Saturday, 27 January 2018
Central Coast Stadium, Gosford
Brisbane Roar Glory vs. Central Coast Mariners
