The final match of the opening A-League round took place at HBF Park with Robbie Fowler’s new look Brisbane Roar side, with 8 players making their A-League debut for the boys in orange, take on last year’s Premier’s Perth Glory.
Perth started the better of the two sides with a few good forays forward but they just couldn’t find a breakthrough as the Holy Trinity of Castro, Ikonomidis and Fall-and-rolly pushed forward time and time again but to no avail.
Brisbane were withstanding the pressure applied by Perth but it amounted to nada when Castro threaded a ball through to Ikonomidis who took it first time and slotted it past Crocombe. The finish from Ikonomidis was top rate as he was sandwiched between to Brisbane defenders and hit it low and hard across the Brisbane keeper.
Diego looks to the heavens and asks what must I do to score today
The bulid up play from the Glory was fantastic and they had the better of the first half chances as Brisbane looked like they were just hanging on for half time and they got there, just.
The second half was all Brisbane. They came out from the sheds and started the second half with great gusto. Brisbane bossed the ball and looked far more likely of the two sides to score.
“Are we going to Roar into life to today?” – Roy O’Donovan, probably.
As time ticked by in the second half, the Roar pushed, they pressed but lacked the quality on that final ball to get them equal with last season’s Premiers.
Fowler handed a debut to Welshman Aaron Amadi-Holloway, who after Jai Ingham came on, was the Roar’s 10th debutant of the game. He would only play 10 minutes but what a vital 10 minutes it was.
With 93 minutes on the clock and less than a minute of added time to go, Roar skipper Tom Aldred pinched the ball from Kilkenny, found Jay O’Shea who clipped the ball to Amadi-Holloway and his header across the goal found the Irishman Roy O’Donovan who buried the ball into the net.
Cue wild celebrations, cue the dreaded offside flag from the linesman. The goal had been ruled offside!
The play was reviewed by VAR and after what felt like four days, maybe five, the call was overturned and Brisbane had equalised with only seconds left! Four of the Roar’s debutants had combined for the equaliser and it was richly deserved after that second half effort.
O’Donovan wheels away after levelling the game late
Glory will be left to rue what could have been but that’s football! Roll on Round 2!
Embed from Getty ImagesWritten by Lachie Hare (Vuck follower)
