Moose Bellows, Knights Crumble

Wednesday 27th Jan, 2010

A five-goal haul to Gareth Musson made the prolific marksman the headline act as the Brisbane Strikers put seven unanswered goals past an Ipswich Knights outfit that, with the notable exception of their forward line, looked overawed by their opposition in their second round match in the Silver Boot pre-season tournament tonight.

Each year the lithe and pacy Musson – nicknamed “Moose” by his teammates - seems to add just a little bit more to his forward’s game each year. Last year he added wing play to his already impressive credentials as a finisher. And on the evidence displayed so far in the Silver Boot it would appear that this year he has added a wicked sleight-of-foot – a ‘which way did he go’ trickery. Certainly tonight he produced several moments of sublime skill that left the Knights’ defenders bewildered as he went about the business of bagging his quintet of goals and contributing to his team’s play in general.

But Musson was by no means alone in leading the Division One side a merry dance. He was ably assisted by the relentless and skilful probing of former North Queensland Razorbacks player Sean Burke, the insightful passing of midfielders Chay Hews and Matt Christensen, the work ethic of striker Matt Thurtell and screener Jordan Mason, and the authoritative tackling and distribution of stopper Jason Shade, to name but a few, as the Strikers put together a cohesive and fluid performance that the Knights simply could not live with.

The eventually one-sided scoreline was not hinted at in the opening twenty minutes of the match as the two sides traded shots without seriously testing either goalkeeper – Seb Usai for the Strikers or Zane Freiberg for the Knights. But it was already apparent that the Strikers were more adept at holding possession of the ball and building attacks, while the Knights looked to the quick movement of midfielder Phil Brown out wide on the left, and forward Trent Griffiths to hit back on the counter-attack.

A sign of things to come, however, arrived in the twenty-second minute of the game when Myles Carseldine, shortly before leaving the field with a minor leg injury, drove a shot wide of the target after the best passing movement of the game thus far had enabled Musson to lay the ball off with his back to goal for Carseldine to strike.

Two minutes later the Strikers got the opener when Hews read the play near the centre circle to nip in and steal a misdirected Knights pass and lob the ball out to Musson near the right touchline. Musson then slid the ball into the path of Burke who raced into the Knights penalty area with a defender in hot pursuit, dragged the ball back to evade the tackle, and then pirouetted to strike a low shot with his left foot that beat goalkeeper Freiberg at his near post.

There then followed a period of rising frustration for the Strikers as they took control of the contest and created a flurry of goal scoring opportunities prior to the half time break only to see them come to nothing as a result of inaccurate finishing or good goalkeeping by Freiberg.

A spectacular one-handed save with his upthrust right glove by Freiberg, while diving horizontally to his left, kept out a scorching goal-bound shot by Musson, and a point-blank block at Musson’s feet after the forward had been played in by Hews kept the Knights in the contest. Meanwhile, Musson was guilty of volleying a cross from Burke over the target on the stroke of half time from only metres out and Freiburg beat out a drive from Thurtell as the Strikers went searching in vain for a second goal.

The Knights also had some good moments, with Brodie Kenyon’s header from a Phil Brown free kick drawing a save out of Usai, and Griffiths scooting free from the Strikers’ defence down the right touchline to send a searching cross just short of the Strikers’ six-yard box where Brown arrived in time to get to it first. But unfortunately for the Knights’ wide man, whose touch throughout the half had been deft and sure, this time he got it wrong and the miscued volley bounced harmlessly away off the legs of a Brisbane Strikers defender instead of troubling Usai.

A few minutes later, as the Knights enjoyed their best spell of the game, Kenyon’s header to a corner kick from the left passed centimetres over Usai’s crossbar as the Knights came the closest they would get to making the Strikers’ net bulge.

Thereafter the Ipswich side were never really in it. While the scoreline remained 1-0 until the half time break, the Strikers resumed control of the game from the restart. Burke released Musson for a run down the right touchline before Thurtell’s outstretched right leg sent Musson’s teasing, low cross over Freiberg’s crossbar as the Strikers threatened in the forty-sixth minute.

A shot from Brown, scooped from a prostrate position a few minutes later, forced Usai into a regulation save as the Knights briefly hit back, but the traffic began to head almost exclusively towards the Knights’ goal as the energy, movement and passing precision of the Strikers’ back line and midfield began to overrun the Knights’ midfielders and place their defenders under heavy pressure.

Something had to give, and in the fifty-first minute it did when Strikers defender Ryan Sandler quickly took a free kick, placing it in the path of Thurtell, who picked out a perfectly timed run by Musson with a through ball. Musson did the rest, calmly chipping the ball over the advancing Freiberg to at last give his team the two-goal buffer their play had been threatening.

Freiberg did well to palm a Hews shot from a tight angle over his crossbar a few minutes later but he could do nothing to prevent Musson getting his second goal in the fifty-sixth minute when the Knights’ defence failed completely to deal with a corner kick, allowing the ball to get through to Musson just outside the six-yard box and then affording him the time to control it with his thigh before blasting it on the volley past the unprotected Knights custodian.

Freiberg’s goalpost temporarily halted Musson’s march towards a hat-trick when it intervened to keep his powerful header from Brad McDonald’s cross from entering the goal with Freiburg beaten, but Musson was not to be denied and he duly collected his third goal –and his team’s fourth – just a few minutes later when he strode on to a through-ball from the right before slotting the ball low to Freiberg’s left.

A superb pass with the outside of his left foot by Christensen was the catalyst for the next goal as it sent McDonald flying away down the Strikers’ left touchline to dribble past a defender before crossing for Musson to tap home his fourth goal at the back post. Burke briefly interrupted the Musson show when he finished off a patient Strikers passing movement in the seventy-sixth minute with a low left-footed drive past Freiberg, but Musson had the last word three minutes later when he got on the end of a cross from the left by substitute Dylan Goodman. Freiberg did well to smother Musson’s initial contact at his back post, but he could not hang on to the ball and Musson stabbed it home at the second attempt.

Freiberg prevented an eighth goal for the Strikers with a brilliant diving save to Thurtell’s late, thunderous volley and it says something about the one-sided nature of the contest that a goalkeeper who conceded seven goals was nevertheless one of his team’s best players. Others to stand out for the Knights were Phil Brown, whose deft touch, pace, speed of thought and passing accuracy occasionally troubled the Strikers’ defence and Kenyon, whose bullish determination and sheer size did likewise.

But for four fifths of the game there was only one team in it, and it was the one wearing yellow shirts. The performance by the Strikers suggested a sizeable leap forward since their win on penalties over Capalaba a week ago, although a much sterner test and a better gauge of their progress should arrive in the form of the Rochedale Rovers next Wednesday night.

Strikers coach Stuart McLaren, however, was cautiously contented with the improvement shown by his side over the past week.

“It’s a step in the right direction, obviously, and that’s all that we’re asking from the boys at this stage - to continue to do the things that we are doing well and to tidy up the things where we need to show some improvement, and I think they did that tonight”, McLaren said.

“There were a few things last week where, defensively as a team, we could have done better - and we did them better tonight. In terms of getting to the point where we are a cohesive unit in possession of the ball and going forward and attacking teams, we are getting better with that as well. It broke down at different times tonight, but that’s to be expected when we’ve got the number of new players that we have, but all-in-all there was big progress being made and we just need to make sure we continue with it”.