Strikers Slip Like Butters Through Olympic’s Hands

Sunday 30th Aug, 2009

The Brisbane Strikers earned the right to host the 2009 Hyundai QSL Grand Final, but earned it the hard way, overcoming a two-goal deficit to beat Olympic FC 3-2 in the dying minutes of extra time in a superb game of football at Perry Park last night.

In the short history of games between these teams there had never previously been a dull encounter, but this one was probably the best of the lot as Olympic grasped a 2-0 lead early in the second half thanks to goals from Brad Lacey and Alex Panic, but could not withstand a late onslaught by the home side as a Michael Butters goal whittle away their lead before Adam Webber grabbed a dramatic equaliser in the third minute of time added on. Butters then repeated his earlier effort with a goal three minutes from the end of extra time to send a vocal home crowd into raptures and clinch the game for the Strikers.

The Strikers began the game brightly, forcing two or three corner kicks inside the first three minutes, and when one of these was played low and hard by John Costello to Chay Hews, who was running towards the Olympic penalty area from a deep position, the Strikers midfielder had the game’s first shot on goal, lifting the ball a metre over Matthew Ham’s crossbar.

As Olympic struggled to string three passes together the Strikers continued to dominate the opening exchanges. In the sixth minute forward Steve Unsworth went close to opening the scoring when his glancing header to Hews’s free kick from the right touchline flew just wide of Ham’s right-hand post.

But Olympic, having ridden out the storm, began to force their way into the contest. A header by Andrew Oar over Strikers goalkeeper Ryan Pearse’s crossbar from a Jack Petrie cross in the eighth minute was an early warning shot across the home team’s bow and ,ten minutes later, they had Pearse’s reflexes to thank for keeping them on level terms when Petrie swooped on a loose pass to feed the run of Chris Hagell down Olympic’s right touchline, and Hagell’s low cross found Oar running in with time to measure a shot from ten yards. Oar got a firm contact to the ball but found Pearse spreading his body to save Oar’s low shot with his legs.

Two minutes later Olympic got a reward for their growing influence on the game when Petrie gathered the ball some forty metres out from goal near Olympic’s left touchline before jinking infield and looking up to spot a run from Lacey to the edge of the Strikers’ penalty area. Petrie chipped a high ball towards the penalty spot and, with the Strikers’ defence caught ball-watching and Pearse coming off his line, Lacey got to the ball first to plant a firm header past Pearse and into his net to open the scoring.

The Strikers responded well but missed a gilt-edged opportunity to draw level in the twenty-second minute when Unsworth dribbled past Olympic fullback Nick Hume inside Olympic’s penalty area and picked out his forward partner Luke Morley with an accurate low cross. Morley was unmarked on the edge of Olympic’s six yard box but somehow contrived to skew his side-of-the-foot finish wide of Ham’s goal with the Olympic goalkeeper no doubt expecting to have to pick the ball out of the back of his net.

For someone of Morley’s scoring prowess the miss was barely believable, and was one of those moments that would have had the home team’s supporters wondering if it was going to be “one of those nights”.

But the Strikers continued to push forward, and another corner kick found midfielder Jeromy Harris applying a firm downwards header only to see the ball bounce up into the grateful arms of Ham. Ham was back in the action again in the thirtieth minute, making a save at his near post from Hews who had ghosted in on the blind side of Olympic’s defence as it slid across to compress a Strikers attack down the Strikers’ right touchline. The vision of Scott MacNicol picked out Hews’s run, but the midfielder’s left-footed shot was well covered by Ham.

A counter-attack by Olympic then had Strikers captain and stopper Matt Smith struggling to cope with a high-bouncing ball just inside his own half. As Smith’s jump got only a glancing header to the ball Hagell swooped on it and toed it ahead, drawing Pearse off his line as the goalkeeper came out of his area to sweep. Hagell got to the ball first but his touch to take the ball around Pearse was a little too heavy and he could not direct his left-footed shot from a tight angle on target as he Strikers’ cover defence arrived inside the six-yard box to clear the danger.

As the clock ticked down towards half time Ham needed to be on his toes again to deal with a shot from outside Olympic’s eighteen yard box by Hews, who strode on to Unsworth’s lay-off to strike a shot that would have crept under Ham’s crossbar had the keeper not jumped to palm the ball over the top of the goal.

That was the last serious action of the first half, but any thoughts the home team might have had that it was getting close to an equalising goal were banished within a minute of the game resuming for the second half. A sloppy turnover of possession in the centre of the field twenty metres inside their own half by the Strikers allowed Olympic to slide a quick pass out to the inside left channel to Oar, who took the ball around Harris towards the byline before squaring it for Panic. From a position very similar to that from which Morley had missed in the first half, Panic made no mistake, sliding the ball past the exposed Pearse to make the score 2-0 to Olympic.

Things were looking grim for the home side, but they responded magnificently. A minute after conceding, a deftly chipped pass by Hews caught Olympic’s defence flat-footed for Morley to stride on to the bouncing ball with Ham coming off his line. This time Morley struck his shot well but Ham spread himself well enough to save with his legs, before getting up to save – again with his legs – only a few seconds later as Olympic’s defence failed to clear the loose ball and MacNicol arrived to strike another goalbound shot.

Strikers coach Stuart McLaren, responding to the urgency of the home side’s plight, made a double substitution in the fifty-fourth minute, bringing on Warren Moon for MacNicol and Adam Webber for Chris Di Sipio, as he looked for more penetration at the sharp end. The substitutions were to exercise a decisive influence on the game, but it took some time for that to happen.

Olympic threatened briefly again in the fifty-seventh minute when a cross from the right by Hagell attracted a touch on the stretch by an Olympic forward that took the ball just the wrong side of Pearse’s far post. But it was the Strikers who were gathering momentum, as Hews and fullback Butters, in particular, began causing the Olympic defence all sorts of problems as they combined with the tireless Morley and Unsworth and the fresh legs of Webber.

As an hour ticked by, fluent passing between Harris and Butters got the fullback behind the Olympic defence and his low cross from the byline was met at the near post by Webber, whose shot rippled the side netting of Ham’s goal. Three minutes later Unsworth directed a header over the crossbar as Costello’s long, floating delivery from the left touchline tempted Ham off his line.

Olympic coach Bobby Hamilton, perhaps sensing his team was conceding too much territory to the insistent tide of yellow shirts, then made some substitutions of his own, replacing Panic with James Meyer and Petrie with Shane Coffey.

Hamilton’s substitutions did not stem the flow and, as the game went into its last twenty minutes, the Strikers won a free kick some twenty metres inside Olympic’s half and ten metres in from their left touchline. Moon, that lethal striker of a dead ball, positioned himself over the ball and sent a dipping delivery towards Olympic’s penalty spot where Butters read its flight perfectly to rise above Olympic’s tall centre-backs to direct a bullet-like header past Ham, who had left his line and found himself in no-man’s land.

As the ball hit the back of Ham’s net the Strikers’ supporters, who had been making their presence felt with gradually increasing vocal exertions, erupted in celebration as if sensing that the goal would signal a late charge by their team against a tiring opponent.

If so, they were right. Olympic fashioned an opportunity for Lacey to have a shot from twenty metres but his shot went harmlessly over the top of Pearse’s goal, before the Strikers got a grip on things again and launched wave after wave of attacks at Olympic’s goal. Todd Gava replaced Harris as McLaren used his bench again. Gava went to the left side of the Strikers’ defence as McLaren pushed Costello further forward to pose the same kind of threat down the Strikers’ left flank as the tireless Butters was now causing down the right.

Gava almost had a dream start to his game as a corner kick taken from the right found its way to Moon, whose drive from the edge of Olympic’s penalty area got through a forest of legs to find Gava on the stretch, only metres out from goal, deflecting the ball just over the top of Ham’s goal as Olympic lived dangerously.

At the other end an Olympic attack finished with Oar working the ball on to his right foot to hit a drive that Pearse was forced to palm away on the stretch, only for the ball to fall to Coffey whose right-footed drive flashed across the face of the Strikers’ goal in the eightieth minute.

The pace of the game was unrelenting as it went into the final ten minutes, and it looked as if the visitors were suffering the most as the Strikers strove desperately to find a way through them for an equaliser. Anything that was punted forward for Olympic was now being dealt with efficiently by Smith and his central defensive partner Craig Collins, and their promptings began a series of attacks that placed Olympic under severe pressure in the dying minutes of the contest.

Hews drove a half-cleared corner kick over Ham’s crossbar on the volley in the eighty-sixth minute, and Costello blasted a volley straight at the Olympic goalkeeper as the visitors clung desperately to their lead as ninety minutes ticked past. Then, as the fourth official held up a sign indicating four extra minutes were to be played, the Strikers found something extra of their own. A lofted pass from inside his own half by Hews was nodded on by Butters towards Webber, whose first-touch pass sent Unsworth racing towards goal, only for Ham to again come to his team’s rescue with another save with his legs as Unsworth directed his shot across Ham towards his back post.

That save seemed to have claimed Olympic a Grand Final berth, but the wily Hews had other ideas and when another chipped pass from the midfielder sprung Olympic’s attempt to play the offside trap, and dropped the ball at the feet of Webber, the Strikers’ substitute raced towards the corner of Olympic’s six yard box from the right with Ham covering his near post. The angle was tight for Webber but, with his team’s own Grand Final hopes hinging on what he did next, he kept his nerve - simply rolling the ball across Ham’s goalmouth. As the ‘keeper watched the ball go past him, all those in the stadium had time to hold their breath before watching the ball gently caress the foot of Ham’s far post before diverting to the right to trickle over the line.

That cued massive celebrations by the Strikers as Webber raced towards the home team’s supporters to go berserk on the touchline, mobbed by at least a half-dozen of his team mates who sprinted from all corners of the ground in a sign that, while Olympic looked out on their feet, there was still some juice in the legs of the home side.

The goal duly took the game into thirty minutes of extra time, which Olympic looked ill-equipped to deal with. Most of the play headed towards Olympic’s goal as the Strikers went looking for the killer blow. Unsworth hit the side netting with a right-footed shot only a couple of minutes in, and Pearse comfortably fielded a low shot from Lacey as Olympic tried their luck from thirty yards in the best moments of the first period of extra time.

After the teams turned around again, Butters chased a pass to the corner flag and lofted a high ball towards the back post that took Ham out of the play. Two players in yellow shirts arrived – Unsworth and Gava – and with the goal begging Unsworth got to the ball first and met it with a firm header only to direct the ball just the wrong side of the post.

With seven minutes remaining Morley tried his luck with a left-footer from twenty yards that Ham held comfortably, and Olympic threatened when Coffey chased a deflected clearance from Smith towards the Strikers’ corner flag before squaring the ball for Meyer, whose shot went well wide.

But in truth, Oympic’s energies were spent. Back came the Strikers again, and when they won another free kick on their left flank with three minutes of extra time remaining, the same deadly combination that had produced the Strikers’ first goal came to the fore again. Up stepped Moon, delivering another dipping free kick into Olympic’s penalty area where, once again, Butters read it better than anybody else. This time his header was less than cleanly struck but it still had enough on it to deceive Ham, looping over his head to rest in the far corner of his goal, once again to massive celebrations by the home side and its incessantly noisy supporters.

That was it for Olympic – there was no way back. Three minutes later referee Paul Eldridge’s final whistle brought a memorable semi-final to a close and confirmed the Strikers as Grand Final protagonists while plunging Olympic into the uncertainty of the preliminary final next weekend.

After the match, Strikers skipper Matt Smith was unsurprisingly proud of his teammates – and their supporters.

“I don’t think I’ve ever played in a game that had that much atmosphere and environment”, he said. “Conceding two very, very soft goals, in my opinion, and going down 2-0....I think we showed absolutely fantastic courage to keep our heads up, shake ourselves off and, well, the rest speaks for itself - to come back to two-all, and then grasping it in the second half of extra time.

“I thought that once the first goal for us went in, their heads dropped and they never recovered from that. We had the fitness and the stamina to keep going, and keep going, and keep going and we got our just rewards.

“When I was playing at Palm Beach I remember coming to Perry Park, and the fans....well, in my opinion, playing against the Strikers was fantastic. I haven’t heard that again until the Olympic game at Goodwin Park and, since then, at every single home game they’ve been fantastic and they’ve been absolutely exceptional tonight.

“It’s a huge lift, particularly when we’re 2-0 down with half an hour to go, or when we’re 2-1 down in the last five minutes, and they’re still singing, they’re still chanting. That’ll give us the extra five or ten percent energy, or to make that second ball or make that last big run”.

Match statistics:

Brisbane Strikers 3 (Butters 71, 117; Webber 90+3); Olympic FC 2 (Lacey 20, Panic 46)

Shots on goal: Strikers 22, Olympic 10

Shots on target: Strikers 11, Olympic 6

Crosses: Strikers 9, Olympic 6

Accurate crosses: Strikers 5, Olympic 3

Corners: Strikers 15, Olympic 3

Fouls: Strikers 9, Olympic 3

Offsides: Strikers 2, Olympic 3

Yellow cards: Hews, Butters (Strikers); Saint, Petrie, Meyer (Olympic)

Red cards: None