It was the 17th minute. Melbourne Victory had already gone 1-0 up, and James Troisi suddenly hacked the ball into nothingness. Likely to the displeasure of his coach, Kosta Barbarouses then had his mind caught between a trap under pressure from Dimitri Petratos and a pass to Stefan Nigro, who didn’t see a pass coming. Petratos then claimed the ball for Newcastle.
After a deft back-heel into space, Petratos released Johnny Koutroumbis, who passed Nigro with minimum fuss and crossed in to Roy O’Donovan. Considering the awkward height on Koutroumbis’s delivery, O’Donovan did very well to put the ball on target, his attempt headed for the far corner.
Enter, Lawrence Thomas. Coming from his near post, Thomas is quickly down to his left and makes an incredible reflex save, keeping his team in front. He even let out a little smile after Thomas Deng cleared the danger. From that point – despite his relatively short stature for a goalkeeper – Lawrence Thomas loomed large over Saturday’s A-League grand final.
Thomas has kept Victory in matches with intimidating regularity this season, and has firmly established himself as the best starting keeper in the A-League.
One only needs to look at Victory’s past three matches to notice his impact. Against Adelaide at 1-0 down, Thomas made a critical one-v-one save against Nikola Mileusnić to deny the Reds from doubling the margin on the break. It arguably secured the result, given how sluggishly Victory were moving the ball until that point. Minutes later, Leroy George equalised and momentum dramatically swung in Victory’s favour, before Besart Berisha’s spectacular winner.
The following weekend in Sydney, a series of saves relieved pressure before Terry Antonis’ unfortunate own-goal.
On Saturday, the initial denial of O’Donovan exemplified what makes Thomas the most complete shot-stopper in the league, aside from distribution with ball at feet – good footwork, a strong hand, sound positioning, anticipation, command of his area and swift reflexes.
Compared to other starting keepers in the A-League, this all contributes to not getting beaten at his near post, as well as making saves with higher degrees of difficulty.
Even before Deng’s clearance, Thomas was straight back up in position to thwart a possible rebound attempt, after a save at full-stretch. That ability was required 14 minutes later, with a fine double save to deny Riley McGree and Jason Hoffman, who was unmarked after Leigh Broxham was caught higher up the pitch.
Following Victory’s highly-fortunate opener in the ninth minute through Kosta Barbarouses and the absence of VAR, they were able to retreat into their natural tactical plan under Kevin Muscat, which is to sit deep and react.
For those expecting something more adventurous, the match was eerily similar to last season’s grand final from a tactical standpoint, with Victory embedded in their own half and defending an early goal against the run of play.
The effect of Thomas’ saves were two-fold on Saturday because firstly, they helped facilitate Victory camping themselves in their own half and not having to open up.
Outside of the goal – which came from a dead ball - Victory’s only other attempt on target for the first half came for an isolated George, who was released in transition after Petratos’ errant pass at the other end of the pitch.
Such stops relieve pressure from teammates in football, while simultaneously applying pressure on the opponent, forcing them to create better opportunities amid psychological deflation.
This became increasingly apparent with Newcastle, a team that has functioned most effectively in transitional scenarios this season.
Newcastle’s best chances over the 90 minutes came from Victory losses of possession inside their own half. That meant Andrew Nabbout’s absence on Saturday was not entirely relevant, because he is a player whose pace complements the space that the counter provides. In a more compressed game like Saturday, where Newcastle had to manipulate defensive positioning, his impact would have been lessened.
With Steven Ugarković playing in the defensive midfield position usually held by Ben Kantarovski, restricting his opportunities to move off the ball, the Jets became increasingly aimless. One shot on target for the second half and a frustrated O’Donovan’s hideous attack on Thomas reflected their overall inability to create as the match progressed. Despite the possibility of extra time and Joey Champness’s earlier introduction, it made the 74th minute substitution of Daniel Georgievski for Patricio Rodríguez palpably late.
Nevertheless, Thomas was immense and quite rightly claimed the Joe Marston Medal, bandages and all. Momentum can fluctuate highly in matches such as these, and quite literally, the Victory goalkeeper singlehandedly denied that.
Bearing in mind his consistently high level of play this season, giving Muscat a reliable foundation to build a defence upon, such a performance in the A-League’s climax was nothing less than deserved.
