One point from two home games is hardly something to be pleased about, but last night’s comeback draw felt like a win. The revamped back line was quite atrocious at times in the first half, but tightened up considerably in the second period. Not coincidentally, Melbourne showed a lot more class going forward after the break. Kudos to Merrick for bringing on Celeski and Fabiano within ten minutes of half time — he took the necessary risk and it paid off.
In case you missed the game, catch the video highlights on YouTube.
Blog reader Kevin wrote to me this afternoon with a few interesting points:
- I don’t think that Brebner has it in him anymore. He was too defensive and Victory only really got going when he was replaced with Celeski.
- I hate to say this but Archie either needs time on the bench or play him down the wings. Every time he got the ball he either played with it too long or too short. He didn’t know what to do with it. There was that point in the game where he could have scored with no defenders around him but instead of shooting he dribbled it, which allowed defenders to descend on him. The only time that he looked dangerous was when he was playing on the right wing and causing headaches deep in the opposition defence. When he attacked the goal directly he bumbled it every time, he almost cost Melbourne the game.
- And the last thing to comment on as a devoted Victory fan is the numbers of people to the first 2 games of the season. Very disappointing. It still shows how much more work the A League need to do to get the message out there as long as AFL are going to pull fans away during their season. I even spoke to some football people on the morning of the day and ask them if they were going to the game that night. Their response was “what game?” Still, 5 years ago if I had said that we would get 19,000 people to a football game in Melbourne during the AFL season everyone would have laughed at me.
I would add to Kevin’s message a few observations of my own:
- Kemp in centre of defence. It was a tale of two halves for Kempy. He made a few critical mistakes in the first half, while in the second he made some very important — and brave — tackles. As I said to my mate Dave, he was definitely channeling a bit of Old Kev in that second half, what with the agro attitude and firm tackles.
- Celeski. Rumour has it Billy’s been injured, hence the bench time this season. But, along with Carlos Hernández, I thought he was the key factor in bringing Melbourne back from a two-goal deficit. If he’s fit enough, we need him on there for a full 90 minutes.
- Surah Sukha. In his thirteen minutes off the bench, he didn’t set a foot wrong. Very solid on the ball. I think we’ll see plenty more of him this season.
