Devils Stun Strikers In Grand Final Boilover

Sunday 13th Sep, 2009

The Redlands City Devils turned most pre-game predictions upside down and, in the process, inflicted on the Brisbane Strikers their second successive Grand Final loss and their heaviest-ever QSL defeat, when they overcame the shock of conceding an early goal to score a runaway 4-1 win in the Hyundai QSL Grand Final at Perry Park last night.

The Devils, who finished the regular season in fourth place and had been written off by most observers even before they commenced their finals campaign, were an unrecognisable outfit to the one that was fortunate to hang on to a 0-0 draw when it had a three-man numerical superiority to the Strikers two months ago. Superbly led by centre-back and skipper Ryan Bridge and fuelled by outstanding efforts from midfielders Chris Bale, Danny Byrne and Darren Davies, the Devils were simply too hungry and too hot to handle for a Strikers team that sometimes did not appear to be ‘at the races’.

As is often the case with finals, this one opened at a scorching pace, and the Strikers were perhaps fortunate that the Devils did not score in the opening minute. As a Steve Unsworth slalom run across the face of the Devils’ penalty area, in which he beat at least four players, was brought to an end by a clearing tackle, the Devils launched the ball up the centre of the park. Jean-Charles Dubois then beat Strikers captain Matt Smith in a foot race to reach the bouncing ball and lobbed goalkeeper Ryan Pearse, who had ventured off his line. Unluckily for Dubois, his shot bounced the wrong side of Pearse’s right upright with the empty goal beckoning.

The Strikers hit back with a swift counter-attack a minute later in which Unsworth picked out Morley with a thirty-yard crossfield pass, before Morley worked the ball on to his left foot to fire a shot at the Redlands goal that was deflected away by a defender for a corner.

After this frantic opening, the game settled down for the next ten minutes or so. The Strikers had probably the better of possession, and Morley again had an inaccurate go with his left foot after working in from the right touchline in the tenth minute, but there was not a great deal for either goalkeeper to be concerned about until Unsworth brought the game to life in the fifteenth minute.

Receiving the ball about twenty-five metres inside the Redlands half in a central position, Unsworth made the most of a “not much on” situation by sprinting forward, shrugging off an attempted tackle, and smashing a shot from perhaps twenty-five yards with ferocious power low to the left of Redlands goalkeeper Mitch O’Brien, who tried in vain to get a glove on the ball as it whistled past to finish inside the left corner of his goal.

It was a wonderful strike by Unsworth to set the champions on their way....or so it might have seemed to anyone wearing a yellow shirt either on the field or in the large crowd that had turned up for the game. Redlands, however, were not about to follow the script.

Another left-footed shot by Morley was pulled in by O’Brien, and Myles Carseldine hit the side-netting with a volley from a Michael Butters cross in the twenty-first minute, before the underdogs got their resuscitation act underway by slowly but surely getting a grip on proceedings in the midfield, where Bale, Byrne and Fyfe were gaining some traction over Chay Hews, Adam Webber and Jeromy Harris for the Strikers.

It was not long before the pressure being exerted by the Devils won them a succession of corner kicks and free kicks, and it soon became apparent that any deadball situation taken from the right side of the pitch by Fyfe was going to cause the Strikers problems. Fyfe’s inswinging deliveries were going into some very dangerous areas and Pearse and his defenders looked hesitant and uncertain in dealing with them. On occasions this led to general pandemonium inside the Strikers’ penalty area as players competed for half-cleared ball and defenders desperately tried to get their bodies in the way of shooting opportunities.

The Strikers survived a couple of these situations before stopper Craig Collins gave away a free kick as the Devils attacked down the right again in the thirty-ninth minute. Up stepped Fyfe again to send another teasing, curling delivery high towards the Strikers’ six-yard box and, as Pearse came off his line and a scrum of attackers and defenders moved towards the ball, little Wayne Knipe got to it first to drive a powerful header into the back of the Strikers’ net to draw his team level.

The Devils had not been playing like a team who did not believe they belonged in the Grand Final, and Knipe’s goal must have confirmed to them that they really did belong. Three minutes later they went within a whisker of taking the lead when, as they attacked around the Strikers’ eighteen yard box, a midfielder struck a powerful shot from twenty-five yards that forced Pearse to fling himself to low to his left. Pearse got his left glove to the ball but could not hold it and, as Knipe arrived to tuck away the scraps, the Strikers’ custodian did extremely well to spring forward again to push the ball away from Knipe with his fingertips.

The Strikers had a couple of attacking flurries just before the half time break, with a header by Unsworth that finished on the roof of the Redlands net being the best of these moments. But as the teams went to the break at 1-1 it was the visitors who seemed to have seized the initiative and the Strikers, whose short passing game had not yet clicked into gear, looked like the team who needed to regroup.

If the Strikers have had a ‘vulnerable spot’ in this otherwise successful season for them, it has perhaps been the opening five minutes after the half time break. It proved so again last night as the Devils began the half more strongly and won another corner kick in the forty-eighth minute, this time on their left. Knipe was the corner taker this time and his delivery was just as good as Fyfe’s, sending the ball skimming across the top of a cluster of players in the six yard box to travel towards the back post where Davies was the last player to get his head to the ball, placing it past the despairing gloves of Pearse and into the roof of his net to give the Devils the lead to the loudly-expressed delight of their supporters.

Stung by going behind, the Strikers produced one of their best attacks of the game, with a pass to Carseldine sending the winger scurrying away down the left touchline. Carseldine cut back infield to feed a pass to the feet of Morley who, with his back to goal, laid the ball off for Webber whose drive from twenty yards flew a short distance wide of the Redlands goal.

This was a short, sharp foray , however, and not the harbinger of a period of dominance for the Strikers, who continued to struggle to impose themselves on the contest. Strikers coach Stuart McLaren, attempting to react to his team’s continuing failure to grab the game by the throat, brought on midfielder Warren Moon for Unsworth, pushing Webber forward to join Morley in the battle to unsettle Bridge and his central defensive partners Anthony Paolino and Albert Edwards.

Not a lot changed. The game ebbed and flowed, and the Strikers continued to concede too many free kicks when it flowed towards their end. Bale missed by centimetres with one of these from twenty-five yards as the Strikers were drawn into believing that Fyfe, who had stood over the ball, would again be the taker.

When the Strikers needed to step up a gear midway through the half it was the Devils who appeared to do so. No player in a yellow shirt was given any time on the ball and the Devils were quickest to most of the scraps, while Bridge was proving an immovable obstacle at the back for the visitors whenever the ball was played forward in the air by the Strikers.

Sixty-four minutes in, as the Strikers tried to play the ball out of defence, Russell Woodruffe pounced on a misdirected pass and fed a quick pass to Dubois. The Frenchman had a good sight of goal with only Pearse to beat, but crashed his shot into the side netting as the home team’s supporters held their breath.

The best opportunity the Strikers could fashion at this stage of the game was a header by Matt Smith from a free kick that looped over O’Brien and on to roof of his net, and shortly after this the Devils landed a huge blow on their opponents with their third goal. Once again, it came from a dead ball situation, with Fyfe swinging another corner kick into that zone of uncertainty near the edge of the Strikers’ six yard box, where the home side seemed unable to win the headers and Pearse, hemmed in by bodies, seemed unable to take control. This time Pearse got a glove to the ball but could not hold it and, as it dropped to the ground, Woodruffe reacted the sharpest and drove the ball into the net to extend the visitors’ lead to 3-1.

McLaren had been readying substitute Scott MacNicol before the goal went in, and MacNicol now came on for Carseldine as the Strikers prepared to throw everything they had left at the Devils with less than twenty minutes left. There soon followed a pivotal moment of controversy as the Strikers played a high ball forward into the Redlands eighteen-yard area and Bridge appeared to give Webber a nudge that caused Webber to almost fall to the ground. Referee Jarred Gillett blew his whistle and initially appeared to point to the penalty spot, before changing his mind on the advice of one of his touchline assistants who indicated that the infringement had occurred a metre outside the penalty area. Moon, who had walked toward the penalty spot, found himself instead taking a free kick which he crashed into the assembled defensive wall as the Devils enjoyed a stroke of luck.

As the game went into its final fifteen minutes the home side had its best spell of the match, pressing the Devils back deep into their own half for long spells and forcing them to play on the break. But the Devils, still playing as if their lives depended on it, yielded very little and, when the outfielders did yield, goalkeeper O’Brien came to their rescue with a trio of saves that prevented the home side from getting a toehold in the contest.

As the number of corner kicks resulting from the pressure mounted by the increasingly desperate Strikers mounted, another substitute, Gareth Musson, drove in a shot after a Smith chest-down that O’Brien did well to palm away. O’Brien was there again to spread his body and save with his legs as a neat touch-off by Webber got Michael Butters away into the penalty area to shoot from a tight angle, and Musson was again left cursing his luck when he shot through a crowd of players from the edge of the eighteen-yard box and O’Brien’s late lunge with his left glove prevented the shot from sneaking inside his post.

O’Brien’s heroics meant that the Devils arrived at the ninety minute mark still two goals to the good. And it was about to get better for them. With the Strikers throwing caution to the wind and committing almost everyone forward, an attack broke down and, as the Devils played the ball quickly forward, they found themselves with Bale and Byrne inside the Strikers’ half and only Smith between them and Pearse. Byrne touched the ball off to Bale, who took it on a few metres before turning Smith inside out with a pass back to Byrne, who then drew Pearse off his line before despatching a low shot inside the post to Pearse’s right to make the final scoreline and emphatic one for the Devils.

Devils coach Dave Thorogood was an understandably delighted man after the match. He admitted that his players were a transformed group from that which last played the Strikers and suggested that the experience of being written off as finals contenders some weeks ago had helped produce that transformation.

“I think it’s adversity that does it”, he said. “We only just scraped into the finals (after) beating the QAS, and I think what set us up was playing a midweek game against the Queensland Roar youth side, when we beat them and beat them convincingly. And I think that gave us the belief that we could do something in this competition. Even though it was knock-out, and even though we were playing teams above us, I truly believed that the lads felt that we could do it.

“And the other side of it was that we were just written off in most quarters. Without going into specifics I felt that, in the game against the Sunshine Coast, it was almost as if they just had to turn up to win - and we played a good first half and in the second half we defended like we’ve never defended before.

“Then Olympic was brought on, and obviously were in bad form but they were still an absolute quality side. With Olympic, I think they were their own worst enemies, because with them talking it up, that was all the incentive we needed....although they had the first twenty minutes of the game, I think they were really limited to half chances.

“We knew when we came into this game, because of the quality of the Strikers side, there were going to be periods of the game when we were going to be under the pump, and when we got the ball we needed to hold it for a period of time. We just couldn’t hoof it long, and I think that probably showed in our game today. I think we were very, very disciplined across the park defensively, and I just think the players wanted it. I mean, we came here with a genuine belief that we could do it”.

For his part, Strikers coach Stuart McLaren gave full credit to Redlands for the way they performed, while suggesting that some of his players had not risen to the one-off big occasion.

“They (Redlands) were the better team tonight. They didn’t allow us to settle into any rhythm and start playing our football”, McLaren said.

“I think we probably contributed to that a little bit as well, but first and foremost you’ve got to say well done to Redlands. They deserved to win, took their chances from set pieces, and we really didn’t create as many chances tonight as we’re capable of, and certainly probably the fewest tonight of any game all season.

“I think tonight we just didn’t have enough players out on the park who wanted to get involved and assert their authority and put a little bit of an inprint of their quality on the game. That side of it was disappointing, but it’s very tough for me to be critical of our players, and you don’t want to take away any acknowledgement of the opposition. There were just too many occasions when we took poor options, and all of it amounted up to what we saw in the end - and that was only maybe about five minutes of football in and around their goal in the first half, and five or ten minutes towards the end when obviously we were pushing to get something out of the game”.

Brisbane Strikers 1 (Unsworth 15) v Redlands City Devils 4 (Knipe 39, Davies 48, Woodruffe 71, Byrne 91)

Teams:

Brisbane Strikers: Ryan Pearse (gk), Michael Butters, John Costello, Matt Smith (c), Craig Collins, Adam Webber, Steve Unsworth, Luke Morley, Chay Hews, Myles Carseldine, Jeromy Harris.

Substitutes: Warren Moon, Gareth Musson, Scott MacNicol, Chris Di Sipio, Jerrad Tyson

Redlands City Devils: Mitch O’Brien (gk); Ryan Bridge (c), Anthony Paolino, Albert Edwards, Darren Davies, Chris Bale, Danny Byrne, Wayne Knipe, Graham Fyfe, Russell Woodruffe, Jean-Charles Dubois.

Substitutes: Jesse Lindemann, Pat Polistina, Scott Bow, Raj Oshen, Andrew Ralph.