Sunday’s round two Liberty A-League fixture between Perth Glory and Adelaide United at Macedonia Park was Glory’s first home game for nearly a year. However, the visitors were in no mood to allow Glory to celebrate and they took all three points with a hard-fought 1-0 win, courtesy of a 19th-minute strike from Dylan Holmes.
This is the first time an Adelaide team has won its opening two games of an A-League campaign, and the Reds showed enough in this contest to suggest they will be in finals contention again this season.
Glory needs a 90 minute performance
For the second time this season, Glory produced a Jekyll and Hyde performance as their first-half display provided precious little for the home fans to cheer. They were ponderous in their build-up play, giving the ball away far too often. Adelaide’s midfield took complete control and the visitors could easily have gone in at the break two or three goals up.
However, just as they did in the opening game against Canberra, the WA side came out with a much more determined mindset in the second half and created enough chances to score an equaliser. Glory coach Alex Epakis will want to address this issue as his team can’t afford to continually chase the game the way they have been doing so far.
Click here for Epakis’s post-game thoughts.
Adelaide continues their good form
Last season the Reds made the top 4 finals for the first time in their history, and with two wins from two so far they seem intent on repeating this feat. Coach Adrian Stenta has his team playing in a forceful manner when they attack with plenty of movement up front, but they are also resolute in their defending and held out for long periods during the second half, when Glory was battering on the door looking for an equaliser. Goalkeeper Annalee Grove was outstanding for her team, whilst Emily Condon gave a masterclass display in midfield. The result was also achieved without last season’s golden boot and Julie Dolan medal winner Fiona Worts, so there may be more to come from Stenta’s side.
Click here for Stenta’s post-game interview.
Are Glory missing Deborah-Anne de la Harpe?
The departure of the naturally two-footed de la Harpe to Sydney FC was always going to be a loss for Glory, as she was not only a threat from set pieces but also provided attacking intent down the left flank with her overlapping runs from full-back.
So far Glory has been using Isabella Wallhead at left back, who came to prominence in NPLW WA as a calm and composed centre-back playing for the NTC. She was substituted at halftime in the Canberra game with Abbey Green moving into the position, and was moved to the right back spot halfway through the first half on Sunday, with Tash Rigby moving over to left back.
This shuffling and re-jigging suggest Epakis is still not settled as to who fills the left back spot, and this is potentially unsettling for the defensive unit as a whole.
Fremantle Doctor provides comfort for attackers
The famous Fremantle Doctor is the sea breeze in Perth. During the summer months, the only variations to the breeze are its timing and strength, with its direction being consistently from the southwest. Yesterday was a fairly typical day with the Doctor in before the 4pm kick-off and then gaining strength during the game.
Perth played into it during the first half, but in the second half the breeze really picked up and Adelaide found it harder and harder to get the ball out of their half. This gave real momentum to Glory’s attacking play, and perhaps this local knowledge will be something for them to work with for the rest of the season.
Colour clashes with red and purple
On the face of it, the red and purple colours of the two teams on Sunday shouldn’t have required a change of shirts, but TV pictures showed that the two strips were strikingly similar when long shots were used. The problem was made worse by the camera location (shooting into the bright Perth sun) and the colours of the shirts were very hard to distinguish. It may well be that the colours of kits won’t be the only determining factor as to whether away teams play in their change strip when coming to Perth in the future.
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