The quick and dirty is that we didn’t play terribly but still lost one nil. We desperately needed this win against Gully and with Avondale and Oakleigh coming up next, there is a very real chance that we will find ourselves bottom of the table in two weeks. The outlook is grim and the green shoots aren’t growing fast enough.
We arrived at Gully just in time for kick off but missed the ANZAC day commemorations as we were stuck waiting outside for tickets. The eftpos machine was down and about 40 people were left stranded waiting for it to come back online. Once we got in though we saw that there were about 400 people at the game and at least half of them were South fans. We grabbed a schnitzel burger and a kransky from the canteen, waited 15 minutes in line for a bottle of water and made our way to the hill on the wing for an incredible view of the ground in the rain.
South actually played possession quite well and had the early play. Switching across the midfield and using the wide players initially to put in crosses. Andy Brennan got a fair chunk of the play and Harding managed to carve out the best chance of the half when he ran onto a one on one chance with the keeper, only to be denied by a finger tip save. This is the current state of South, fast breaks down the wing and runs in behind teams. In the first half overall we pushed the keeper, created chances and won heaps of corners, it was much better to watch than what’s been served up so far this season. Defensively we played well, for the 10 minutes where Green Gully controlled the game we were relatively assured in defence and managed to keep the score 0-0 at the break.
To get out of the rain we headed to the main stand at half time and found a good atmosphere. A lot of families, good music and rumours swirling of Heidelberg leading Avondale added to the vibe. In the second half the rain was more intermittent and so was South’s hold of the game. Gully scored a great goal early in the half which changed the game. After a stretch from forward pressure from Gully an tackle outside the box created space for a shot which was blasted past Lopez. South did well to absorb the initial pressure, but in the end simply couldn’t clear it effectively to the midfield. It seems that re-learning how to play between the lines is going to cause some issues. In the past we simply would have booted it out of danger and I think there is still a time and place for these things, we just need to find the new balance.
The team to their credit continued to create chances after going down, and chances with variety. Long shots, skirmishes in the box and even an incredible dribble from Pope that saw him spin past a Gully defender, break another line and hit the post… agonisingly close. Gully however were compact and content to play on the counter, allowing them to absorb pressure and create a few break away runs against an undermanned South defence, hitting the post themselves and pushing a couple of saves out of Lopez. It could have been 1-1, but it could have been 2-0 quite easily.
Mells was eventually subbed off which was disappointing considering his excellent balls into the box throughout the game. Mikkola came on to give us fresh legs down the wing but the impenetrable Gully defence soaked the pressure and eventually walked away with a 1-0 win.
The performance was much better noting a few obvious teething issues. Mells and our wingers won’t be effective enough until we have a proper striker (losing Moller feels pretty bad right now). Bonada will be an important player when he returns from injury.
One wonders though what we should do with our old attacking weapons, last night for example we had a few chances for Mikkola to use his long throw, but we instead elected to play more conventionally. Maybe its not effective without the big strikers… but it would have been good to mix things up especially late in the game.
We will certainly need something special for our next few games. We face Avondale (fresh from their loss to Heidelberg) then Bentleigh in the Cup and then Oakleigh. If our current play isn’t good enough to beat Gully it won’t be enough to get a result against Avondale.
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