Harbour View FFA Cup: A long way to go

So finally the FFA Cup has come around and arguably the biggest tie of the now completed Round of 32 was a clash which saw the travelling Sydney Fc play Wollongong Wolves. The performance was good enough, but a lot of improvement is needed.

Firstly before carrying on, congrats to Wollongong Wolves who put up a very respectable performance given where the club currently are in the NPL competition. Also of note was the crowd which was definitely more than I expected. Of note however was how many Sydney supporters who either made the trip down or had the oppurtunity to see the team in their own backyard.

Now to the meat of this article. Yes the sky blues did enough on the night. We could look back later on and be happy with the fact that Sydney Fc got a vital 90 minutes in the legs. However have I ever been so unconvinced by a victory? Probably not. The first 45 minutes was dreadful with the team often been sucked down to the wolves level. Feeling the need to hit needless long balls to a target man, not looking composed at all with Brillante and O’Neil basically non existant in the first half.

Which brings us to Matt Simon or in this instance I’m gonna refer to this as the “Tim Cahill effect”. Sydney on the night were obviously encouraged to hit it long simply because we had Matt Simon up front. As a former coach myself at local level, I was pulling my hair out. Lets just hope this was a one off and once the likes of a marquee striker and Dimitrijevic returning things look a lot more fluid. It should be said however Matt Simon did score a brace and deserves some credit but I think he found his level.

Unfortunately on this note, this was a golden oppurtunity to give young Charles Lokingjay some minutes. The young striker has shown promising signs in the NPL2 competition and I hope to see more of him as second choice this season.

Now, lets take a look at some positives. Sydney Fc haven’t recovered from the loss of Gersbach, last night however Zullo provided some hope going forward assisting a goal and looking safe defensively at the same time (now lets sort out that Right back position). Attacking Depth, Our squad is particularly strong up front, last night it was Carney, Ninkovic and Blackwood (ugh). However when you consider we have Ibini, Brosque, Holosko and a marquee striker still to come. Arnold has no excuse not to entertain.

*Image courtesy of Sydney Fc

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