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Brisbane Roar couldn’t be flying higher under their popular coach, even if a couple of late goals put a dent in their festive celebrations in front of a bumper crowd on Saturday.
I’m talking, of course, about the club’s A-League Women’s team – which went down 2-1 to Canberra United in front of just under 3500 fans at a packed Perry Park, despite another goal from woman of the hour and the league’s current top scorer, Laini Freier.
A win would have seen the Roar move to the top of the standings under popular coach Alex Smith, but a daisy-cutter from Emma Robers and an even later winner from veteran Michelle Heyman saw the visitors snatch all three points.
So how much trouble are Brisbane Roar really in given their women’s team just drew a record crowd to Perry Park, Smith has his women playing swashbuckling football, and they’ve rocketed up the standings from ninth last season to genuine finals contenders.
Depends who you ask.
“This is not a time for panic or change, the club has had plenty of change,” Brisbane Roar’s chief executive Kaz Patafta told News Corp’s Erin Smith early last week.
“We must remain steadfast in our beliefs and our conviction to deliver sustained long-term success both on and off field.”
He was referring, of course, to the club’s wretched start to the A-League Men’s season – which has now seen the three-time champions go ten games without a win under coach Ruben Zadkovich.
And for a significant portion of the club’s fan base – and this is true of just about every A-League club – the men’s results are the only thing that matters.
Which makes Friday night’s 3-1 defeat to an out-of-sorts Central Coast Mariners all the more frustrating.
Keegan Jelacic (Photo by Matt Roberts/Getty Images)
It wasn’t as if Zadkovich’s side were many magnitudes worse than the visitors from Gosford – but they certainly lost the key moments of the match.
It started with some poor set-piece defending for Walid Shour’s unfortunate own-goal opener, continued with substitute Corey Brown getting caught in no man’s land to allow Storm Roux to set up Harrison Steele’s go-ahead headed goal, included a red card to central defender Hosine Bility, and ended with a first-ever goal to a teenager the Mariners signed from Brisbane Roar’s academy.
All of which was watched by a small but boisterous crowd of 6122 fans rattling around a 52,500-capacity stadium.
To put things into perspective, the Brisbane Bullets drew a crowd of 7028 to their NBL clash with the Sydney Kings 24 hours later – despite playing at the unloved Brisbane Entertainment Centre in Boondall some 15 kilometres out of town.
Which means that the A-League in Brisbane is not going well – at least on the men’s side – and Tuesday night’s clash with the Newcastle Jets is something everyone could probably have lived without.
None of this is news to anyone who follows football in Brisbane.
What is news is the fact that FQPL1 club Brisbane Strikers are reportedly looking to upgrade Perry Park into a boutique 8000-capacity stadium of their own, according to advocacy group Brisbane Strikers Watch.
The Strikers, it should be said, have done nothing to improve the ground since the National Soccer League ended back in 2004.
But after Brisbane United’s aborted bid for a place in the new National Second Tier, and with Brisbane Roar re-establishing links with Football Queensland in an effort to try and rent Perry Park themselves, the Strikers have apparently decided now is the time to announce their own stadium ambitions.
Which goes to show just how fractured the whole football scene is in the River City.
Brisbane Roar’s powerbrokers have so far proven themselves content to hold steady in the wake of the men’s ongoing struggles, and given the dearth of resources around the A-Leagues in general, that’s not a huge surprise.
But the clock is ticking.
They desperately need a result against the Jets on Tuesday, before another A-League Men’s season drifts aimlessly away.