By the Palm Trees – Central Coast Mariners vs Newcastle Jets
The Central Coast Mariners will head into this weekend’s F3 Derby full of confidence. Fresh from claiming the biggest scalp in the clubs history on Tuesday night (SanFrecce Hiroshima) and after claiming the points in the last derby, the Mariner’s will be looking to maintain the momentum and take all three this time.
While the crowd at the AFC Champions League match on Tuesday night was low, rarely has a crowd been so buoyant and why not? It wasn’t a case of the luck falling for the Mariners so much as it was taking control of our own opportunities when it counted. We made less defensive errors than we have recently and added to that by finishing our chances when they came. SanFrecce could not say the same as they missed their opportunities and allowed the Mariners to capitalise on their mistakes, never more evident than the terrible pass from defence which turned out to be the assist for the second of two quality goals for Mile Sterjovski.
A number of Japanese fans attended the game and added to the atmosphere with their drumming and singing but the Yellow Army and Mariners Brass Band outclassed them easily with their excitement building accompaniment. The band topped it off with two visits to the second tier of the eastern stand, getting some rousing support from the upstairs faithful as they went, and teaching one or two of the less active fans the words to their songs. Hearing the upstairs patrons singing along with the Tetris theme was a highlight. Aside from the band and despite the small crowd the chants of “We Sing for Yellow” rang as loud as a full stadium crowd after the Yellow Army lead their now familiar call and response. There was doubtless much more interest in getting involved in the chants and songs right around the stands.
On the pitch things looked a little ominous early when SanFrecce put together some classy movements culminating in putting themselves ahead after Kim Seung Yong blemished his copy book with some terrible defending on the goal line. It wasn’t long however before Kim was able to redeem himself with a classy ball of his own to give Sterjovski the space to take his first opportunity. With Matty Simon knocking the Japanese side around the park with his physical style, it wasn’t much longer before our second came, after a failed clearance, which Sterjovski duly drove (slight deflection noted) into the far top corner.
I’m pretty sure the assembled die hard yellow supporters were aware of the gravity of our side’s achievement afterward, as the Mariners three clap chant went on long after the final whistle and continued as the boys greeted the fans at the fence for some back slapping. I don’t mind admitting that before the game I had low expectations of the result, given the quality of the opposition – winners of the last two Japanese J-League’s, so leaving the stadium it was an almost surreal feeling of elation to have been there to witness such a feat.
On this note we go into the 30th F3 Derby with a renewed sense of optimism and a feeling of quiet confidence toward our chances of shoehorning our way into the A-League finals. A win in the derby will go a long way to pressing those claims and Mossy and the boys will be only too aware of that. With a hectic schedule continuing we must claim every point we can at our home fortress and this is a great chance for us to remind our neighbours its always been and always will be a tough night at a Central Coast Stadium F3 Derby. There is no need for me to repeat the statistics from my last F3 Derby blog but they’re proof that the Mariners are consistently better.
Newcastle has shown form as patchy as their Hunter Stadium pitch and will need to be on one of their “on” nights to trouble us this time. They’ve taken some significant scalps during this campaign but the derby is different, and where the Mariner’s rule.
I predict we can cap off a week to remember by taking the points in a rousing win and send the Jets fans home licking their wounds yet again.
Mariners by at least 1
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