Bell’s Brace Seals Under-21s Final For Strikers

Saturday 12th Sep, 2009

Darren Sime’s Under-21s team got the QSL’s Grand Final weekend off to the perfect start as far as the Brisbane Strikers were concerned last night, as they won a gripping Youth League Grand Final 2-1 against the Redlands City Devils at the Cleveland Showground.

Every previous game between these two teams this season had produced entertainment aplenty and this one continued the trend, with the brilliance of the two goalkeepers – Matthew Tubbs for Redlands and Brendan White for the Strikers – being once again the only thing preventing a much higher set of digits on the scoreboard.

The Strikers began the game at a murderous pace, pinning the home team inside its own half for almost ten minutes with crisp movement and passing that had Redlands chasing shadows. And by the quarter-hour mark they were beginning to find an outlet down their right flank, with Tubbs being forced to deal with a couple of good crosses from Jordan Corte, who was getting into some deep positions.

But it wasn’t until fullback Chris Maher went raiding down that right channel in the nineteenth minute that the Strikers got their delivery into the Redlands penalty area spot-on to achieve the perfect pay-off. Maher’s floated delivery towards the penalty spot found Seb Bell umarked, and as Bell jumped, he sized up his options to guide his header over the outstretched left arm of the tall Redlands goalkeeper to send the ball into the top corner of Tubbs’s goal to open the scoring.

The Strikers continued to dominate, with Redlands managing only a few forward raids and centre-forward Cadeau Aoci causing Strikers centre back Matija Simic and left fullback Jimmy Christou just the occasional problem. Meanwhile, a long through-ball from Reagan Alder for the Strikers played in Bell, and he drew Tubbs off his line before missing the target as Redlands lived dangerously.

Redlands produced nothing of note until they suddenly sparked into life in the twenty-eighth minute. As the home team attacked outside the Strikers penalty area a neat pass from Bruno Caluao played Aoci in behind the Strikers’ defence, but Aoci’s shot was brilliantly smothered by White and then, as Redlands won possession again, a diagonal pass played right winger Dean Nelroiske. As the Redlands player bore down on goal he looked odds-on to score but again White performed brilliantly for his team, blocking the winger’s angles before thrusting out his left glove to prevent, from close range, Nelroiske’s shot from going inside his near post.

Redlands then substituted Aoci with the taller Kyle Price, and the substitute made an almost immediate impact, holding the ball up under pressure from three defenders in the thirty-fourth minute before squeezing a pass out to Caluao, who lifted his shot over White’s crossbar from fifteen yards.

Having survived these awkward moments the Strikers hit back decisively a minute later when an attack through the middle of the park saw Corte played into the Redlands penalty area. Corte beat a defender and found himself in a one-on-one battle with Tubbs, who forced him wide but then spoiled his good work by bringing Corte down as the striker toed the ball towards the byline. A penalty was the the verdict of the match officials, and Bell then drilled the spot kick low into the left corner of Tubbs’s goal to double his team’s lead.

In the forty-first minute the Devils went extremely close to narrowing the gap when an exquisitely worked move involving three first-time passes saw Caluao again played in on goal. But once again White was alert, haring off his line to throw himself at Caluao’s feet to partially block the shot. The ball still had enough pace on it to have crossed White’s goal line, but defensive cover arrived to hack the ball off the line and preserve the Strikers’ lead.

The pace of the first half had bordered on frenetic, and given that the Strikers had just one player – Ben Wilson - on the bench there was certainly some hope for Redlands that if they could find a goal in the second half they would also find a way back into the contest against an undermanned and tiring team.

But it was the Strikers who began the second stanza looking as if they wanted to score the next goal. Tubbs was in the action early to save two goal-bound shots, the second being an effort on the volley from Corte who had only Tubbs to beat after the Strikers caught the Redlands back line square with a ball played in diagonally from the right.

Tubbs then produced probably his best save of the night to deny the busy Dylan Milne, who arrived at the right time to run on to a square pass from Corte, who had raced on to a long ball out of defence. Milne had only to control the ball as it came across and then apply a solid finishing touch from perhaps ten yards. But although Milne discharged those tasks perfectly he found Tubbs, almost at his feet, somehow guessing correctly where Milne was going to aim his finish and getting down low to palm the shot away.

Redlands, having survived the knockout punch, picked themselves up and went in search of a goal to keep their hopes alive. Midfielder and captain Scott Bow, who had been playing a “holding” role in the first half, pushed further forward in the middle of the park and began to influence proceedings in an attacking sense. Price hit the outside of White’s side-netting with a shot from inside the Strikers’ penalty area, and White tipped a shot from left fullback Anthony Hunter, and then another from Greg Warden, centimetres over his crossbar as the home side threatened.

Sixteen minutes into the second half, however, the Strikers probably should have killed the contest off when they counter-attacked down the left and Corte cut inside and ran into the box to send a rasping drive to Tubbs’s left. Tubbs got a glove to it but could not prevent the ball from falling at the feet of Bell who, running at top pace alongside Strikers substitute Ben Wilson to get to the scraps, stuck out his right foot only to send the deflected ball centimetres wide of Tubbs’s unguarded goal.

Meanwhile, the home side was beginning to make some inroads wide on the left and, after one or two crosses from that area had failed to find their target with the Strikers’ defenders running back towards their own goal, the Devils at last struck paydirt in the sixty-ninth minute when Alex Watson got free to deliver a low cross towards the Strikers’ six-yard box, where Price arrived to sidefoot the ball past White who this time had no answer.

The home crowd then came to life, willing their team on to find an equaliser, and the Strikers endured ten or fifteen minutes of concerted pressure from the increasingly desperate Devils. But although they were forced to play on the break the Strikers were still able to threaten on the odd occasion, with Corte’s curling right-footed effort from the edge of the Redlands penalty area with ten minutes remaining giving Tubbs an anxious moment before it finished the right side of his post as far as he was concerned.

The dangerous Price drove a low shot a few inches wide at the other end, and Warden went for glory and missed with a shot from a tight angle when perhaps a square pass to an incoming team mate might have been a better option.

With this the tiring Strikers, who had reshuffled to a 4-5-1 formation in an effort to repel the home side’s late charge, had weathered the storm. As the game went into four minutes of time added on by the match officials, it was Tubbs who was forced to produce one more miracle for his team when he again guessed correctly to make another brilliant save, this time at the feet of Wilson, as the Strikers counter-attacked through the ever-dangerous Corte who squared a pass to the substitute.

The Strikers played out much of the last three minutes inside the Devils’ half before the full-tiime whistle sounded to announce that they had avenged the penalty shoot-out loss to their hosts a fortnight ago, and had claimed the Grand Final trophy to have something to show for a season in which they had generally produced sparkling football.

Afterwards, coach Sime said he thought that his team had matured greatly and that, if this game had been played six weeks ago, they might not have been able to prevent the Devils from clawing back their lead. He also gave his team enormous credit for the way they approached the first half.

“In the pre-game talk I just reiterated how proud I was of their last two performances - not just that they won, but the way they went about it, with the passing and movement”, Sime said. “I asked them to employ more of the same behaviour tonight and I thought (that in) the first half they were unbelievable.

“They were solid in defence, they were quick, and they shut everything down. Normally you find when you get from defence to attack, once we’ve won the ball, everything slows down. But it didn’t – the pace remained the same. As soon as we won it, it was ‘boom, boom, boom’. We were knocking it around and the movement off the ball was brilliant.

“That first half set up the win because we went in at half time and I could see that they were happy and they were full of confidence because they knew that they were playing well”.

Redlands City Devils 1 (Price, 69) v Brisbane Strikers 2 (Bell 19, 35)

Redlands City Devils: Matthew Tubbs (gk), Anthony Hunter, Nial McCarthy, Craig Gibson, Julian Pace, Dean Nelroiske, Scott Bow (c), Greg Warden, Justin Garland, Bruno Caluao, Cadeau Aoci. Subs: Alex Watson, Alex Firth, Kyle Price.

Brisbane Strikers: Brendan White (gk), Chris Maher, Jason Shade (c), Matija Simic, Jimmy Christou, Liam Previtera, Julian (Tom) Inoue, Reagan Alder, Seb Bell, Dylan Milne, Jordan Corte. Sub: Ben Wilson