After missing a hatful of chances, Jamie Maclaren was the eventual hero as Brisbane Roar came back from a goal down to defeat Wellington Phoenix 2-1 on Saturday afternoon. In oppressive, late-afternoon Far North Queensland humidity it was a gutsy, important performance by the Roar.
From Perth to Dunedin, Geelong to Townsville, since 1977 the national league has bravely battled the tyranny of distance. How many other football leagues in the world can claim, completely unselfconsciously, a Long Distance Derby Cup?
In the almost-four decades of national league football, however, the northern-most meeting point has been Townsville, and even there, the North Queensland Fury experiment only lasted for two mostly regrettable seasons. This A-League encounter in Cairns — the 113th national league venue — is a new frontier, one for the stadium-spotters, stats nerds and most importantly, for the thriving, multicultural football community that has developed in the splendid isolation of Queensland’s tropical north.
Brisbane Roar believe they are spreading football to regional areas of Queensland, and hope to make this a more regular event. Indeed their members voted to play in Cairns over much closer locations, and the players made themselves available to the locals, which is a vote of confidence for football in the Far North.
That Suncorp Stadium, their regular home ground, is being re-turfed after the recent Taylor Swift concert was also a significant factor. Without first-class real estate football is the perennial wanderer. The Roar remain at the mercy of Suncorp, and the biggest piece of football infrastructure up here in Cairns is Endeavour Park, which, apart from a touch-up here and there, hasn’t changed in 25 years.
Perhaps the only disappointment was that the match was played – in front of a 5,162 crowd – at Cazaly’s Stadium, a totally unsuitable AFL ground named after a Victorian footy player and the current home of AFL Cairns. The atmosphere was flat, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying – where else can you get pre-game entertainment featuring Ned Zelic swaggering out of a chopper dressed in T-shirt, shorts and shades, as if he was just popping into a Saturday afternoon barbecue at a mate’s place?
Brisbane, who prepared for the Cairns humidity for the past fortnight by watering their training pitch, started the brightest. Half-chances fell to Jack Hingert and Maclaren, while Henrique — granted a rare start in place of Brandon Borello — was his usual busy self. His low cross into the box on 35 minutes deserved better than Dimitri Petratos’ air-swing and Thomas Broich’s feeble shot.
It was Phoenix striker Roy Krishna who opened the scoring on the stroke of half-time, burying the visitors first real chance of the game. Collecting the ball on the edge of the box, he bamboozled both Hingert and Petratos, and drove a low shot into the net to give Phoenix a shock lead. Perhaps Krishna, who grew up in Fiji, was the best acclimatised to the tropical conditions?
The heat, of course, was the biggest talking point of the match. In the Cairns summer it is brutally hot by 8am, so a 4:15pm kick-off reduced the players to a sacrificial offering at the alter of the Fox Sports programming department. Wellington, who last week played in mild Auckland weather on a scabby blue pitch painted green, must have felt like they were stepping straight into a furnace.
Word is that head of the A-League Damien De Bohun was up in Cairns this time last year to arrange this fixture, but the logic of Cazaly’s Stadium at 4:15pm remains a mystery. All week, local football people shook their head in bemusement at the scheduling and the location. Why not play it at 7:30pm, when the heat is less oppressive? Why not play at Barlow Park, the home of state league side Far North Queensland Heat and the ground where the NRL hosts games?
Certainly Phoenix coach Ernie Merrick wasn’t happy with the scheduling. Midweek he questioned the timing of the match, and post-game admitted that his players “deteriorated due to the weather conditions”.
“We weren’t allowed a drinks break in the second half because it was a nano-degree below 28 [degrees],” he said. “Kick-off time is obviously decided by someone who has never played football in his life. If it’d been a couple of hours later I think we could have produced a better performance.”
In any event the match was entertaining, end-to-end and probably of a higher quality than most expected. In the first half the Phoenix sat back to conserve energy, happy to play on the counter attack, while the fresh legs of Jeffrey Sarpong just after half-time instantly made an impact, with the Ghanaian providing a defence-splitting pass to Roly Bonevacia on 49 minutes. Only Jade North’s lung-busting run and superb slide tackle prevented the Phoenix going further ahead.
For all the Roar’s possession, there was a frustrating lack of finesse up front for most of the match. On several occasions Maclaren found himself in good positions, but simply couldn’t find the back of the net. On 68 minutes he missed perhaps the best chance of the game, failing to connect properly to a precise Broich cross.
In the 71st minute, however, Maclaren made up for his earlier errors by turning provider. His searching pass into the penalty box found Jean Carlos Solorzano, who in turn found Steven Lustica with a sharp cross. Lustica, who came off the bench on 66 minutes, provided the clinical finish that had been previously lacking, and post-match Roar coach John Aloisi said he “deserved” to score.
“Stevey has been unlucky that he hasn’t been starting, because early on in the season he was playing,” said Aloisi. “We’ve got a strong squad so I have to make decisions, tough decisions, but he never drops his head. That’s a credit to him and that shows the rest of the players that you don’t drop your head, because you never know when your opportunity is going to come again.”
Indeed not giving up became a theme of the night. Moments after Lustica’s equaliser he tried to return the favour with a delightful back-heel for Maclaren, but again the Brisbane striker failed to finish the job. With just minutes left to play, however, Maclaren finally broke through the Phoenix defence and slid his shot underneath goalkeeper Glen Moss. Maclaren’s winner was his sixth goal of the season, and probably his hardest earned.
“Macca was lucky, a bit fortunate to finish the way he did,” said Aloisi. “But he deserved it because he kept on going and made sure that he got into goal-scoring positions all the time.”
