FT: Sydney FC 5-1 Brisbane Roar
Not a game, but a shame. Sydney FC were on a different planet tonight and, with a clear buffer on top of the ladder, will be very hard to stop in their bid to be champions for a second straight season. Le Fondre’s first A-League hat-trick takes him above Jamie Maclaren on the goal-scoring charts and he can thank the likes of Baumjohann, Ninkovic and Barbarouses for the shiniest of silver service. A great performance by Sydney FC and a great day of sport. Thanks for your company. See you soon.
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GOAL! Sydney FC 5-1 Brisbane Roar (O’Donovan 90+5')
Brisbane get a consolation goal, a penalty to O’Donovan, after a clear infringement in the box. Not the way Sydney wanted to end the game, but 5-1 it is.
GOAL! Sydney FC 5-0 Brisbane Roar (Le Fondre 89')
Le Fondre gets a hat-trick, his first in the A-League, by heading home a delightful little cross from Buhagiar. My, hasn’t that man had an impact in his few moments on the pitch. This is about right, 5-0.
GOAL! Sydney FC 4-0 Brisbane Roar (Buhagiar 86')
Le Fondre turns provider, picking out Baumjohann with a searching ball on the right and this time it’s Buhagiar who finds himself on the final pass - and the man who’s been on for less than a minute makes no mistake.
85 mins: Buhagiar on for Barbarouses, who positively sprints off the pitch after what happened to Ninkovic.
82 mins: Ryan Teague, Australia’s U17s skipper, replaces Brattan to run on for the first time in an A-League game. Good luck, young man.
81 mins: Barbarouses again and again Young is good enough to keep the deficit to three goals, blocking the full-blooded shot with his outstretched right hand. Good stop.
77 mins: Sydney squander a chance to go 4-0 up with Caceres and Barbarouses each having a good chance to beat the keeper, but Young, who’s had plenty of practice tonight, is equal to the task. At the other end, O’Donovan attempts a bicycle kick. Nice try but nothing doing.
69 mins: Yellow card! Le Fondre’s got a bit to say to the ref, perhaps not happy with how he’s being treated, and whatever he said was enough to draw a yellow. And now it’s time for Sydney’s first change - Ninkovic off for Caceres. The ref is getting rather officious and brandishes a yellow card for Ninkovic, who didn’t depart the field of play quite as quickly, or directly, as the whistleblower would’ve liked.
63 mins: NO GOAL! Le Fondre waltzes into a one-on-one with the keeper and ‘scores’ his hat-trick, but the flag was up for off-side. Moments later Le Fondre goes down after a coming-together with Aldred, who’s already on a yellow.
59 mins: Another change for Amadi-Holloway on for Wenzel-Halls. So, thankfully, the hyphen equilibrium is restored. That’s Fowler done for the night in terms of substitutions. Amadi-Holloway makes an immediate impact, making the keeper work with a cute little back-heel.
57 mins: Yellow card! Baumjohann again. Yellow card again. This time Brisbane resort to the old hands-over-the-shoulder-and-drag-this-bloke-to-the-turf routine. This time it’s O’Neill whose name goes into the book.
54 mins: Yellow card! Baumjohann does what Baumjohann does, ball on a string and all that, and Aldred has had enough, chopping the playmaker down with cynical intent to rightfully attract a yellow. Can’t believe it’s taken the Roar this long to go the knuckle.
50 mins: Baumjohann, light on those twinkletoes of his, dances around a defender or two but can’t get past another. For a fleeting moment it looked like he might scythe through the lot of them and make it 4-0. But no. Not yet.
46 mins: A double change for Brisbane. Fowler might have liked to make it 11 in, 11 out. But it’s just the two - Bowles on for Gillesphey, and Powell on for Inman.
HT: Sydney FC 3-0 Brisbane Roar
A complete mismatch. Sydney’s ball players are doing as they please - Baumjohann, Ninkovic and Barbarouses are cutting the Roar to ribbons - and Le Fondre is doing the rest. Brisbane have won just one of their past 19 A-League games away from home. It’s about to be one of their past 20.
How’s this for a sausage roll?
GOAL number 3 for Sydney FC 🔥🔥🔥#Aleague #SYDvBRI pic.twitter.com/dYSQNzhobM
— FOX Sports Football (@FOXFOOTBALL) December 7, 2019
GOAL! Sydney FC 3-0 Brisbane Roar (Le Fondre 42')
Wow. A stunningly weighted ball from Grant, on the right just inside his own half, finds Barbarouses, who cuts back into the path of Le Fondre and the striker caresses the ball into the top-left corner. Brisbane in disarray, and likely in awe of this vastly superior opponent.
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31 mins: The Roar defence is again stretched as Le Fondre picks out Barbarouses but the angle gets away from him and the keeper protects his near post.
Here’s Ninkovic’s goal. I think Baumjohann is my new favourite player.
2 for Sydney FC in the first 25 mins! 🔥🔥🔥#Aleague #SYDvBRI pic.twitter.com/bX9bxntkP4
— FOX Sports Football (@FOXFOOTBALL) December 7, 2019
GOAL! Sydney FC 2-0 Brisbane Roar (Ninkovic 25')
Baumjohann to Barbarouses to Ninkovic. Goal. Training ground stuff from a seriously good football team and Brisbane just have no answer to it. Baumjohann shows poise and patience to find Barbarouses, whose cross along the floor finds Ninkovic directly in front and the rest is history. This could get ugly. This is ugly.
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23 mins: Neville is afforded some rare space down the right and has a chance to produce a good cross, but the execution just isn’t there. The ball slingshots down the other end and Barbarouses beats his direct opponent but shoots just wide of the right post.
16 mins: A chance for Brisbane with Gillesphey lining up for a free kick just outside the box. Beckham would’ve gobbled it up, but Gillesphey isn’t Beckham. Gillesphey is Gillesphey. The ball flies over the crossbar.
Here’s Le Fondre’s goal. The one that counted.
First goal of the game for Sydney FC 🔥🔥🔥#Aleague #SYDvBRI pic.twitter.com/5ZkgVQzhS6
— FOX Sports Football (@FOXFOOTBALL) December 7, 2019
12 mins: NO GOAL! Le Fondre runs at angles and the Roar defence has no idea where he is as Baumjohann releases the striker, who beats the keeper one-on-one to seemingly make it 2-0. But Le Fondre himself looks doubtful and Brisbane get the requisite video assistance. The Sydney FC man was off-side, marginally, but off-side all the same. Still, these are bad signs for the visiting team.
GOAL! Sydney FC 1-0 Brisbane Roar (Le Fondre 7')
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful ball from Ninkovic splits the Roar defence wide open and releases Barbarouses, who cuts back from the right and the resultant loose ball is pounced upon by Le Fondre. And Le Fondre rarely needs to be asked twice. First blood to Sydney FC. Did I mention that the ball from Ninkovic was beautiful?
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3 mins: Early free kick for Sydney FC, deep in their own half. So no imminent threat, but Robbie Fowler’s brow still looks very furrowed. You see that a lot these days. I much preferred it when he was a player and celebrating goals by rubbing his nose along the boundary line.
1 min: And we’re away. Playing surface looks lovely. How’s this for a stat: Brisbane Roar are yet to score a first-half goal this A-League season.
Teams: Sydney FC v Brisbane Roar
SYDNEY FC (4-2-2-2) - Andrew Redmayne (GK); Rhyan Grant, Ryan McGowan, Alex Wilkinson, Joel King; Luke Brattan, Paulo Retre; Alexander Baumjohann, Milos Ninkovic; Kosta Barbarouses, Adam Le Fondre.
BRISBANE ROAR (4-4-2) - Jamie Young (GK); Scott Neville, Tom Aldred, Jordan Courtney-Perkins, Macaulay Gillesphey; Bradden Inman, Aiden O’Neill, Jay O’Shea, Stefan Mauk; Dylan Wenzel-Halls, Roy O’Donovan.
Just minutes away from tonight’s A-League game between Sydney FC and Brisbane Roar at Kogarah, which as it happens is just down the road from Chez Heinrich. Anyway, doesn’t seem as smoky today as it has been. But on the teams front, Brandon O’Neill is a big out for Sydney FC after failing to recover from a knock suffered against Western United.
Warm ups ✅
— Sydney FC (@SydneyFC) December 7, 2019
Kick off up next here...#SydneyIsSkyBlue #WeAreChampions #SYDvBRI pic.twitter.com/1tRODCKu5r
Speaking of Markus Babbel, have you seen David Squires’ latest hilarious offering? It’s about the Grosse Deutsche.
A-League: FT: Wellington 2-1 Western Sydney
A third straight win for the Nix, which takes them into the top six on the ladder. More VAR drama, however, with Wellington claiming all three points after a handball in the box that preceded Dávila’s 89th-minute penalty. Cue controversy, fallout and an even bigger headache for Markus Babbel.
"The key moment in this game!" 🔥🔥🔥#Aleague #WELvWSW pic.twitter.com/gY1mGH7uLu
— FOX Sports Football (@FOXFOOTBALL) December 7, 2019
In the Australian Open golf tournament, Matt Jones is poised to become a multiple winner of the event after posting a three-under 68 on moving day.
Thanks to AAP, here’s a snapshot of the day:
PLAYER OF THE DAY: Matt Jones - the 2015 champion and 2017 runner-up continued his affinity with The Australian, where he’s a member, to grab a three-stroke lead with his three-under-par 68
SHOT OF THE DAY: It takes a pretty special shot to finish up a tree but that’s exactly what last year’s runner-up Dimi Papadatos did with his drive on the par-4 12th hole
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I did see and it was pretty ordinary, to be honest.” Marc Leishman reckons American Patrick Reed deserves all the roasting he gets from fans at next week’s Presidents Cup in Melbourne after being penalised two strokes for illegal play on Saturday at Tiger Woods’ Hero Challenge in the Bahamas
TOURNAMENT SUMMARY: Jones is poised to join some of the legends of golf as a multiple Open champion as he heads into the final round three shots clear of American Cameron Tringale and four ahead of Japanese amateur Takumi Kanaya, South African Louis Oosthuizen (70) and Englishman Paul Casey
How about the MCG pitch? Today’s play in the Sheffield Shield match between Victoria and Western Australia was abandoned because the deck was deemed unsafe. Like me rushing to the bar for first shout of the evening, you don’t see that too often.
Takes me back to one of my first gigs as a budding young reporter, covering a Test match between West Indies and England that lasted 10 overs and one ball before sanity prevailed and the match was called off.
W-League: FT: Melbourne Victory 1-1 Western Sydney
Lynn Williams cancelled out the first-half strike of Melbourne Victory’s Haley Hanson to ensure spoils were shared at Latrobe City Stadium. Not a bad result for the hosts against a Wanderers team that sits atop the ladder (for now).
The two protagonists have been decided for tomorrow’s WBBL final. Defending champs Brisbane Heat were too good for Melbourne Renegades and Adelaide Strikers were likewise much superior to Perth Scorchers. But don’t take my word for it. Relive the wonderment of the two liveblogs hosted by Geoff Lemon, who needs a new set of fingernails and a new keyboard after today’s Herculean effort.
Yes, so what more can be said about Sam Kerr? Frightening thing is, given she’s only 26 we’ll be saying lots more about her in the coming years. Better invent some new superlatives. The latest accolade to come her way is courtesy of this fine media brand, which today named the Matildas captain the best female football player on the planet. No argument from me or from Samantha Lewis, who penned this delightful tribute about the Australian superstar we all love to love.
Preamble
Evening, sports fans. It’s been one of those days when too much sport is barely enough (thanks, HG), and gosh there’s already been plenty to sink the canines into today. We’ve had the two WBBL semi-finals, action in the A-League and W-League has been happening and will continue to happen, it’s the third round of the Australia Open golf tournament and, as if often the case these days, the inimitable Sam Kerr has been in the headlines. More on that in a later post. But without further ado, let’s get cracking. You know the drill - get in touch by email or Twitter
