Week six of the Hyundai A-League passed with a flourish and it was Adelaide United who used it best, consolidating their position at the top of the table with a powerful victory over the Newcastle Jets.
It is hard not to feel a bit sorry for the Jets. With financial worries mounting and the future uncertain, coach Branko Culina took advantage of this season’s fifth straight game without a win to make an interesting combination of justified excuse and finger pointing at some of his players.
“I can see it on their faces that they’re not quite with us the way we would like them to be”, he said. “Some of the players, like Kasey Wehrman, are very tough. For the others, whose personalities have a different make-up, it’s been a massive distraction.”
Football Federation Australia head Ben Buckley wasn’t giving any encouragement to the troops, instead making a muted plea to the local business community to step in. “We want Newcastle to be in the competition,” said Buckley in a recent interview, “but the FFA cannot bail [out] every club all the time and we can’t put the rest of the competition in jeopardy. Whether it’s in Adelaide, Townsville or Newcastle, the loyalty and passion for the team has to be realised through sponsorship and support.”
Quite why Kasey Wehrman isn’t distracted by all this may be moot, but only having a promise that you will be paid to the end of this week will make minds wonder in any profession, which is exactly what will be playing on Jets’ players’ minds.
And yet for all that, Adelaide were well worth their win. Cassio broke down the left for the first, chipping the ball back in for the increasingly reliable and ever exciting, Matthew Leckie to leap high, unchallenged, in the box and plant the ball squarely in for his third of the season.
The lead was then doubled in meticulous style by Marcos Flores. Two weeks ago he scored a stunner against North Queensland and bettered it this time out, taking a lay off from Sergio van Dijk and then taking on half the Jets team before finishing sweetly across the face of goal into the top corner. Later on the Jets threatened and Cassio made the worst backpass of the season so far to let the Jets’ Sean Rooney in for a late consolation, but the result was safe.
Coach Rini Coolen has created a strong team in the South Australian capital, combining youth with experience and deserves to be unbeaten. Keeping his team fit was the first step to creating a winning system and having Van Dijk firing on all cylinders has given Matthew Leckie the chance to really show his worth, instead of last season where he was often isolated or played out of position due to lack of first team options.
Not all is rosy however as revelations last week indicate that up to eleven of Adelaide’s first team squad will be out of contract by the end of the season, including Leckie. Since the club is owned by the FFA there’s no chance of a splurge, as tempting as it may be, so Coolen no doubt sees this season as the one chance to take this team to the top before the bean counters step in.
The financial problems beginning to swamp the game are compounded by falling crowds and a sense that perhaps the FFA has spread itself too thin in its many objectives. The deliberate growth into the marginal football territory of Queensland last season doesn’t entirely tally with the ongoing problems that Western Sydney have in creating an A-League team, a clear growth area for the sport. Due to join with the Melbourne Heart, they were pushed back a season and may yet get pushed back again.
The operational objectives of domestic football’s governing body however remain in the background for most football fans who are just after some entertainment. On this score Melbourne Victory duly delivered, with Tom Pondeljak opening the scoring, and Ricardinho breaking his duck for the club with a cheeky second against a Brisbane Roar side who had yet to concede all season.
Ricardinho had nutmegged one defender and eventually lost control of the ball before Brisbane Roar defender Luke Devere inexplicably failed to clear or protect it, allowing the Brazilian to slide in between his legs and kick over the keeper. Grant Brebner finished things off with a rasping finish after a typically slick build-up to add a gloss to the day and overtake Brisbane Roar, although injury to Kevin Muscat, out for a couple of months, sullied the afternoon somewhat.
Wellington Phoenix came good against Sydney in New Zealand, Paul Ifill scoring from the spot after Brazilian striker Bruno Cazarine had been adjudged to have brought down Ben Sigmund in the area. Cazarine made good on his error, scoring at the other end, but the final word went to Nick Ward who scored a beauty from just outside the D to sow the game up for the Phoenix.
Perth, the other trailblazers, finally succumbed to defeat, this time at home and to Gold Coast United, for whom Jason Culina scored the only goal in the first half whilst Melbourne Heart lost at the Blue Tongue Stadium, where Daniel McBreen fired the Central Coast Mariners to the top of the table, albeit for less than a day.
Off the field things are looking far from rosy, and if reports that the A-League is haemorrhaging some $25M a year are accurate that is certainly cause for concern, but the standard of football on the pitch is as high as it’s ever been in Australian Football. Throw in a timely few words from billionaire Frank Lowy that he “knows” the league will be on a secure financial footing soon and the clouds may be parting up ahead. Maybe the risks the FFA have taken in over-reaching themselves are about to pay off.
