Perth Glory take on Sydney FC in another friendly tomorrow. Both sides lost their previous games
(Perth lost to Central Coast, Sydney to Newcastle) and this will be a chance to see where they are
at.
Mostly it will be noteworthy because of Brett Emerton, though Fairfax's Michael Cockerill focused
his pre-game story on youngster Terry Antonis.
On one hand you have to be impressed with Perth Glory's effort in a topsy-turvy 3-2 loss to
Sydney FC yesterday.
Without a few key players, who would definitely be in the first team, the boys in purple put in a
tough day in the office, something which all Glory fans should be proud of.
Apologies for not posting for a few days, but FP has been in a state of mourning over that cricket
performance by a team which comes from the subcontinent and starts with the letter "P". (It does
not stand for Panic-stan)
Meanwhile Perth Glory drew with Sydney FC yesterday in a game where the home side had about a
billion chances.
Morning all, welcome to the blog on this sleepy Saturday.
As we are coming nearer and nearer to the end of the Interlull (which, if anyone was wondering, is
a crass combination of international and lull) the news is starting to ramp up.
Of course, as most of you would be aware, coach Dave Mitchell held a presser yesterday as part of
Perth Glory's midseason review, which was nothing more than a normal presser.
Yesterday FP had a chance to check out a bit of Perth Glory's training session and attend the
presser. Also made a couple of interesting observations while he was there.
Firstly, while club stalwart Jamie Harnwell is a few weeks away from recovering from his injury, he
had a bit of a run and looked pretty comfortable.
SOME very interesting news from The West Australian in today's paper - Tony 'James Bond' Sage has
revealed that the three Socceroo hopefulls, Chris Coyne, Jacob Burns and Mile Sterjovski, would be
let go on loan BEFORE the A-League finals if it helps them get a ticket to the World Cup.
Now this isn't actually new, we heard about this when the trio we snapped up on free transfers back
in August.
BEFORE we get into today's juicy blog, should give a mention to the guys at Glory Football Tees and
the new shirt available from their site (left).
The joke obviously refers to the antics of Chris Coyne against Brisbane a couple of weeks ago.
These guys aren't guys who live in China, these are Perth Glory fans (the type of guys who don't
know what a bandwagon looks like) who use the profits for the creation of Glory banners and the
Perth Glory fanzine - which always gives FP a bit of a laugh.
SO finally we have some juicy news to get our collective teeth into. But firstly, FP should mention
that Perth Glory winger Adriano Pellegrino will be doing a live chat today from 1.30pm (WST) on the
West Online.
Now this sounds pretty cool, but it'll be interesting to see how it works, and more importantly,
whether there is a good response from the fans – but knowing the Perth Glory faithful, FP is sure
that shouldn't be a problem.
Having a cousin over from the 'Mother Country' coupled with writing a couple of articles for
various fanzines (more on that later) have left the blog a bit unattended.
But all is well, so lets get into some Perth Glory news.
IS it just me or does everything look better after a Perth Glory win. The birds are singing, the
fans are singing, the um... clouds are singing - ah scrub the last one.
Anyway, yesterday Perth defeated Newcastle 2-0 in a game which, surely most people would agree, the
Glory controlled from start to finish.
IS the weather starting to reflect the feeling among the Perth Glory faithful? It's only two games
into the season and the general fan is starting to feel like this has happened all before.
Some of the fans are already sharpening their axes and pitchforks and the fan pressure is slowly
building on the Football Hooligan - Dave Mitchell - to get a win.
RIGHTO, it's the day before the next Perth Glory game - which can only mean - preview time. So what
can we expect from the Glory this week? Some of the tripe they served up against Adelaide or
something different?
Head to Head
All time A-League meetings:
Wins: Wellington 3, Perth Glory 2, Draws - 1
Last meeting:
Wellington Phoenix 1 Perth Glory 1
Westpac Stadium, Round 15, December 2008
Perth Glory team news
Former Glory captain Jamie Coyne has been ruled out for four weeks with that injured knee he
suffered in the lost to Adelaide.
PERTH GLORY defender Chris Coyne believed his shirt tug on Adelaide United defender Robert
Cornwaite, which resulted in a penalty, was a "soft foul" and wouldn't have been given in
Europe.
The penalty was converted by United captain Travis Dodd and sealed a 1-0 victory in the first match
of the A-League season.
Adelaide United 1 (Dodd 31' pen)
Perth Glory o
Crowd: 13,847
ADELAIDE United captain Travis Dodd continued his scoring success against Perth Glory, with a
well-taken penalty which sealed a deserved 1-0 victory at Hindmarsh Stadium tonight.
We're only an hour or so away from the first match of A-League ver. 5 and already it's promising to
be a cracker of a year!
Two new teams in Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury, new and "unique" kit designs, a host
of new faces from local and abroad, ex-socceroos and marquee talent the likes of Robbie Fowler,
Jason Culina, Mile Sterjovski, Chris Coyne, Jacob Burns etc.
We're only an hour or so away from the first match of A-League ver. 5 and already it's promising to
be a cracker of a year!
Two new teams in Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury, new and "unique" kit designs, a host
of new faces from local and abroad, ex-socceroos and marquee talent the likes of Robbie Fowler,
Jason Culina, Mile Sterjovski, Chris Coyne, Jacob Burns etc.
PERTH GLORY coach Dave Mitchell says he understands newly-appointed captain Jacob Burns and trusts
him to lead the club to the new season.
While the Glory had a number of suitable players to pick as captain, including club stalwart Jamie
Harnwell and Socceroo defender Chris Coyne, Mitchell was happy to give the leadership to Burns.
Mile Sterjovski, Jacob Burns and Chris Coyne may temporarily leave Perth in January to 'prepare' or
desperately try to convince Pim to give them back a spot.
Not great news for Perth fans and perhaps why MItchell thinks top 6 is so great.
Ha. Who would have thought it would come so quickly? And by former Roar player Chris Grossman!
Perth player Chris Coyne showed it is OK to hit the keeper with the ball. So North Queensland got
their goal.
And Jacob Burns got his 5th yellow suspension. Pity Talay got a 2 yellow red for diving.
It was the right result. Adelaide dominated the first half. Clearly Adelaide missed out on a
straight forward penalty in the first 2 minutes as Jacob Burns had his first touch on an Adelaide
leg entering the penalty box from the right. Later, justice was made when Chris Coyne pushed/pulled
down Robbie Cornthwaite for a linesperson's decision.
Interesting to see Sydney FC making links in China.
In China's Super League, Adam Griffiths was a 60th minute substitute as Hangzhou Lucheng defeated
Chris Coyne's Liaoning Whowin 2-1.
Of course Chinese team Liaoning Whowin were quick to see the opportunities with their Aussie
friends and have sealed a special relationship this week with Sydney Wholose FC.
John has been sick. So he has asked me to update his blog.
There are two questions from this game:
1. were Perth prepared to cheat to win?
2. does Chris Beath have the skills to referee in the A-League.
Dad and I watched the replay on tv and it was pretty clear that the Roar, while making some bad
defensive mistakes ( is Bob Malcolm good enough to play in the A-League), dominated the game.
