At long last, we’ve finally broken our away duck and picked up three points on the road.
At long last, we-ve finally broken our away duck and picked up three points on the road.
The match against Newcastle was realistically ours to lose. They had a metric ton of their best players out, no legitimate strikers and would have been feeling the psychological ills of having their home ground advantage removed by the Super X competition. We may have been lacking Aloisi and Terra, our two superstar forwards, but we went into the match with youthful exuberance and got the job done.
Huge credit has to be given to Aziz Behich for his outstanding run of form at the moment. Since the derby he has hardly put a foot wrong (I-ll forgive the red card in that match). His link play with Rutger Worm has been top notch and they-re forming a very, very formidable partnership on the left wing.
All this talk about our up-and-coming left back makes it hard to sometimes recognise the hard work of our other wingback, Michael Marrone. As a defender, he played 13 matches in a row before picking up a yellow card. When you consider that he is picking up the fast and tricky runs of wingers, this is a very impressive feat.
His crosses from the right and general feeding play is impressive, but what wins points from me is his determination to win the ball back if it is lost and not get caught out of position.
He may have made a few mistakes early on in his Heart career, but he has rectified them and been very solid down the right hand flank for us.
The biggest thing I have to talk about from the Newcastle match is that goal. My god. What a goal. Nick Kalmar, take a bow you superstar. Full credit goes to Josip Skoko for the sweet control and header back into the box, but that acrobatic shot is easily the most impressive goal we-ve scored. Kalmar has been a revelation for us this season, and let-s hope that he keeps up the good vein of form.
The match against the Glory, however, I don-t see as a point gained. Perth had everything to play for, sure, and were fielding a third of their youth side, but we should have come home with all three points. Our first half display was lethargic and sloppy, however you could put that down to the ridiculous amount of travel we had to do to make it to NIB Stadium.
The second half was a much improved performance. We looked like we were playing our brand of football again and we certainly had the right feed coming from our midfield and wingers to claim a point.
Alas, it was not to be. Had Eli Babalj-s header glanced only an inch or two closer to the goal we would have snatched three points at the death, but I guess on the balance of play a draw was the right result.
Now we travel to Dairy Farmer-s Stadium to take on the Fury. This match will certainly be entertaining, as their brand of football is fast and fun. They seem like they-re still a little shell-shocked from the issue with the Jets game, so we have to take advantage of that and get another win on the road. A win will push us to fifth and, more importantly, ahead of Victory on the table.
If you want to watch the game in a friendly atmosphere with other Heart fans, head down to the Imperial Hotel in the city (opposite Parliament House on the corner of Bourke and Spring St) from 8:30pm on Wednesday to cheer on our boys to bring a total of 7 points home from our 10,000km road trip!
Yours in support,
– The Punter
www.redwhiteunite.com – The home of all Melbourne Heart supporters
