The Fire overturned a 1-0 deficit to take the match into extra time, before goals from Tyson Holmes and Chris Bacon got them home over a gallant Razorbacks outfit to earn them the chance to do what they did in 2008 – travel to Perry Park to snatch the Grand Final silverware off the Strikers.

Strikers coach David Large had believed all along that the Fire would prove too strong for the Razorbacks on their own turf, so was not surprised that the champions would once again stand in the way of the Strikers winning their first QSL Grand Final at their third attempt.

Large said he was not of the opinion that having played two extra-time matches on consecutive weekends would be a hindrance for the Fire next Saturday.

“No, I don’t think so”, Large said when asked about it.  “If anything, it makes it slightly easier for them in terms of continuity of football time.  That’s probably what has gone against us in the last two years, when we have had the week off”.

But Large is not concerned that his young team, whose average age is just 21, will be overawed by the challenge of taking on the champions on the big day.

“Maybe it’s the innocence of youth, but at training there has been no apprehension about where they are going and what they are doing”, Large said. 

“They are not a demonstrative type of team.  There are a lot of quiet players in the squad who just get on with business”.

The Strikers, who won the championship with daylight second, suffered their first loss to the QAS this season in extra time after being upset 3-1 last weekend in theMajor Semi-Final by the Sunshine Coast Fire at Gympie.  The QAS will now go on to contest the Grand Final against the Fire.

Strikers co-coach Martin Large said that the superior fitness of the QAS had made the difference for them against his team in extra time.

“The difference was fitness at the end of the day”, he said.  “We missed a couple of opportunities to finish it and we got caught as a result.  We just didn’t have the legs to finish it”.

The Strikers were pitchforked into the preliminary final when they were beaten 3-1 by the Sunshine Coast Fire in the major semi-final at Gympie last Sunday.  The game will kick off at 11.30 am and will precede the Hyundai QSL Preliminary Final between the Sunshine Coast Fire and North Queensland Razorbacks, which will kick off at 2.30 pm.

The Strikers did it the hard way, overcoming an early deficit to go on and dominate the game before getting a late equaliser from the penalty spot and scoring the decisive goal in the first half of extra time through a volley from Sean Burke.

There were no surprises in either of the team line-ups.  Much as expected all week at Perry Park, Sunshine Coast Fire’s midfield general Tyson Holmes escaped a suspension for a dismissal three weeks ago on appeal and took his place in the home team’s starting eleven.  But Fire coach Aston Bell adjusted his formation to a 3-5-2 and played Holmes in a deep-lying role in an apparent attempt to counter the midfield domination that a five-man Strikers midfield established in the most recent match between the two sides.  Strikers coach David Large sprang just one surprise, switching Myles Carseldine from the right wing to the left and using Michael Angus on the right side of his formation.  

On a narrow field with a well-grassed playing surface the Strikers began strongly and the Fire withstood some anxious moments as Carseldine, Sean Burke and Matt Thurtell all had shots at goal within the opening ten minutes without seriously testing Fire goalkeeper Antony Hall.

But in the eleventh minute the visitors were rocked back on their heels after the Fire won a free kick wide on their right side of the pitch a few metres inside the Strikers’ half and Holmes hoisted the dead ball high towards the Strikers’ six-yard box.  Strikers goalkeeper Seb Usai came off his line to jump for the ball amid a group of defenders and attackers but, just as he has must have done many times throughout his career, the Fire’s tall centre-forward Shaun Blackman outjumped them all to get his head to the ball first and direct it high into the corner of the unguarded net.

The Strikers had been undone again by an example of ‘Sunshine Coast Fire 101’ – a Holmes high ball to Blackman – and Large must have been fuming in the Strikers’ dugout as he contemplated a difficult afternoon as a result of his team failing to deal with it.

To their credit, the Strikers responded well to the setback, and Hall was soon forced to make a smart save at his near post to smother Thurtell’s attempt to turn in a low cross from Angus, before another high delivery from Holmes went beyond the back post for Corey Towle to drive in a low shot that Usai initially spilled at his feet before gathering it in at the second attempt.  Then it was Hall’s turn again, getting his hands up in front of his face to beat away a fiercely struck volley from Burke after Thurtell’s leap to head on Ben Griffin’s free kick had put Burke in on goal.

By midway through the first half the Strikers, though still behind on the scoreboard, were dictating terms with skipper Chay Hews striding around the midfield and directing play with unerringly accurate passes and stopper Ben Griffin keeping things tight at the back with Matija Simic and Jason Shade.  With the Fire dropping back behind the ball their penalty area, and ultimately their goal, came under siege.

The home team rode its luck through to the half time break as the Strikers went close with a succession of chances.  Griffin was centimetres over the crossbar with his header to Hews’s corner kick in the twenty-sixth minute and Simic guided a header to a Griffin free kick across the goal instead of on target, before Carseldine did everything but rip the frame of the Fire’s goal out of the ground when his thunderous shot from thirty yards from a Jordan Mason lay-off roared into Hall’s right hand upright, about a foot from the ground, with Hall at full stretch.  So hard did Carseldine’s shot hit the post that the ball rebounded all the way out for a throw-in.

Forced to play on the break, the Fire looked dangerous only when Holmes became involved and the clever midfielder almost played Blackman in on goal with a crafty through ball just before half time.  Usai, however, was awake to the danger and slid out in front of his six-yard box to whisk the ball off Blackman’s toes.

By the half-time break the Strikers had amassed eleven shots on goal to the Fire’s two, so dominant had they been in general play.  But it mattered not as far as the scoreboard was concerned and the Strikers still had it all to do in the second half if they were to avoid a date with the North Queensland Razorbacks next weekend in an elimination final.

The Strikers were straight back into their stride when the game resumed, pressing deep into the Fire’s half and creating half-chances for Mason and Thurtell, before almost getting caught out on the break in the fifty-second minute as a thirty-metre crossfield pass from Blackman pitted Jai Cross and Simic against each other in a foot race towards the Strikers’ penalty area.  Cross shaded the race and got in a shot under pressure that fizzed across Usai’s goalmouth with the goalkeeper throwing himself hard to his right without getting a touch.

Back came the Strikers again, and midfielder Matt Christensen missed by a whisker two minutes later with a dipping left-footed drive from twenty yards that cleared Hall but skimmed his crossbar as it passed over.  As the pressure mounted on the Fire’s goal they were fortunate to survive another scare three minutes later as the Strikers attacked down Carseldine’s side of the pitch and the diminutive winger evaded a defender’s attempted tackle before rolling the ball inside to Christensen, who spotted an angled run towards the near post by Thurtell and fed it with a perfectly-weighted through ball.  Hall sprinted off his line but Thurtell got there first, swivelling and hitting a first-time shot that again flew narrowly over the top of the Fire’s goal.

By midway through the second half it seemed that the Fire had been doing about as much chasing of the football as it was humanly possible to do without conceding a goal.  The Strikers were now getting in behind them in wide areas almost at will, but could not fashion a telling cross.  Large had made a couple of substitutions, bringing on Jonti Richter for Christensen and Reagan Alder for Carseldine, and the fresh legs of the two newly-introduced wingers made things even worse for the Fire’s toiling defenders, with Richter in particular proving almost impossible to close down.

But an equaliser remained stubbornly out of reach with Hall in good form between the posts, making a spectacular two-handed save to his left to pull in a curling twenty-five yard free kick from Thurtell and tipping a back post header from Burke on to the roof of his net, and Richter narrowly missing the target with another direct free kick while Griffin directed a glancing header to a corner kick from Hews a metre wide.

Just as the Strikers might have sensed the game slipping away from them, however, they received a change of fortune with ten minutes remaining when the ball was played into the Fire’s penalty area to the feet of Burke.  Burke shielded the ball with his back to goal under pressure from a defender, before turning quickly and appearing to be hauled to the ground.  There were howls of protest from the home side and their supporters as referee David Wiebe blew his whistle and pointed to the penalty spot, from where Thurtell coolly converted the resulting penalty – sending the ball into the middle of the net as Hall guessed wrongly and dived to his left – to bring the Strikers level at last.

In the remaining minutes of regulation time both sides strove for the winner.   Hall again had to dive to his left to save a deflected shot from Alder in the eighty-first minute before Fire midfielder Yuta Gonai’s trickery and deception around the Strikers’ penalty area created an opportunity for Holmes to try his luck with a volley that passed high over the top of Usai’s crossbar.  At the other end a neat interchange of passes between Hews and Richter ended with the winger letting fly with a left-footed drive that passed narrowly wide of Hall’s upright as the ‘keeper threw himself to his right.

Three minutes of injury time were played, and were marked by Hall making another save to a weakly-hit shot from Alder, before extra time was confirmed.  The Fire had the Strikers momentarily on the rack five minutes into the extra thirty when Alder had to make a desperate sliding interception to prevent Blackman getting on the end of a cross and then, as the ball came out to Holmes, another desperate block was needed to prevent the midfielder’s shot from testing Usai.

But the Strikers were continuing to ask most of the questions.  A quickly-taken free kick from Thurtell sent Richter scurrying towards goal to let fly with a right-footed piledriver that had Hall leaping up, only to fail to get a touch as the ball flew over his crossbar, before the Strikers delivered the decisive blow seven minutes into the first stanza of extra time.  An attack directed down the Strikers right touchline, and involving around six or seven passes, eventually found Angus feeding a pass inside the Fire’s penalty area to Thurtell, who helped it on to Burke with a deft flick with the outside of his right foot as defenders were drawn towards Thurtell’s near post run.  Burke suddenly found himself with the goal gaping in front of him with nary a defender in sight and, not for the first occasion in an extra-time contest this season, he duly cracked a left-footed volley low into the goal past the exposed Hall to a roar of delirium from the visiting team’s supporters.

There was still time for the Fire to come back, however, and another dose of ‘Fire 101’ almost got them on level terms seventeen minutes into extra time after Thurtell had conceded a free kick wide out on the left side of the Strikers’ defensive formation.  Holmes’s floated delivery to the back post again found Blackman outjumping the Strikers’ defence to get his head to the ball, but this time it bounced off the top of Usai’s crossbar and away to safety.

That was the last time the Fire threatened the Strikers’ goal and it was the visitors, in fact, who had the best of the remainder of play.  Burke thrashed another shot across the face of the home team’s goal after Richter and Thurtell had combined to create the chance, before Angus became the last player to rattle the woodwork as he received a pass from Hews and, from fully thirty-five yards, lashed in a shot that cleared Hall before smacking into the underside of his crossbar and bouncing back into play.  The Strikers then successfully ran down the clock inside the Fire’s half to keep their lead intact until Wiebe blew his final whistle of the afternoon to confirm the Strikers as the first team into the Grand Final.

It was a relieved Large who, after the game, paid tribute to the Fire’s renowned togetherness.

“This team (the Fire) just seems to have the ability to scramble and scramble and scramble and actually get away with it”, he said.  “But in saying that, I thought we worked hard, we stuck to the task, we held our shape well and in the end we were lucky enough to get what we needed”.

Large said he had not been confident that, after the Strikers got their equalizer, they would go on to win the game.

“I was confident before the game that we were going to win – I honestly believed that”, he said.  “However, with the way the game went and the missed opportunities that we had – because arguably we dominated the game in terms of possession – we struggled to put the ball away and so I was never confident.  No, never”.

Sunshine Coast Fire 1 (Blackman 11) v Brisbane Strikers 2 [Thurtell 80 (pen), Burke 97].

Sunshine Coast Fire:  Antony Hall (gk), Corey Towle, Shaun Blackman (c), Tyson Holmes, Yuta Gonai, Jai Cross, Greig Henslee, Sam Knight, Aaron Blazendale, Chris Bacon, Alex Henderson.  Substitutes (playing):  James Stinson, Ryan Delahunty.  Non-playing: Jonathan Rose, Josh Taylor, Sam Nicholls (rgk). 

Brisbane Strikers: Seb Usai (gk), Jordan Mason, Michael Angus, Chay Hews (c), Matt Christensen, Matthew Thurtell, Ben Griffin, Sean Burke, Matija Simic, Myles Carseldine, Jason Shade.  Substitutes (playing):  Jonti Richter, Reagan Alder, Jordan Farina.  Non-playing:  Wayne Knipe, Brendan White (rgk).

Match statistics:

Shots on goal:  Fire 6, Strikers 26

Shots on target: Fire 2, Strikers 12

Crosses:  Fire 7, Strikers 16

Accurate crosses:  Fire 1, Strikers 5

Corners:  Fire 2, Strikers 8

Fouls: Fire 20, Strikers 20

Offsides: Fire 6, Strikers 0

Yellow cards:  Blackman, Stinson (Fire); Shade, Carseldine, Mason, Thurtell (Strikers).

Red cards: None

In less encouraging news for the Strikers, the club’s youth side went down 3-1 to the Fire in their major semi-final.  A first half Chris Maher goal was cancelled out by Cohen Bell’s goal late in the second half after the Strikers had missed a host of opportunities to extend their lead.  The Fire then scored two more late goals through a Ryan Delahunty penalty and another strike by Bell to move into the Grand Final will consigning the Strikers to an elimination semi-final next weekend.

Coach David Large confirmed today that, barring any training ground mishaps, all of his players will be fit and well and available for selection in the biggest game of the season so far.  While this might, at first glance, appear to be unsurprising and low-key news for Strikers supporters it is nonetheless very significant and signifies a job well done for Large, who has spent much of the past month fretting about the fitness of several players who were carrying niggling injuries or were training with A-League youth squads as well as playing for the Strikers.

It is significant on at least a couple of fronts.  Firstly, Large is now free to re-unite Jason Shade and Matija Simic, who had both been rested at various times in recent weeks, at the centre of the meanest defence in the competition as the Strikers look to upset the champions at their ‘new’ chosen home ground at the One Mile ground.  Secondly, Large also has the maximum number of options at his disposal to solve the dilemma on the left side of his formation created by the recent departure of the super-consistent and competitive Brad McDonald to North Queensland Fury.  All three of the players Large has been mulling over for the position – Reagan Alder, Jonti Richter and Wayne Knipe – are still in the frame.

Large said that he would spend most of the time at his team’s training sessions this week working hard on the ‘shape’ that he expects to employ against the Fire, and that he was very happy with how the team has been training.  On the basis of what he had seen, and on the impromptu opinion of an independent and unbiased source, he felt his players were set for a huge effort on Sunday.

“I do think they are ready”, he said.  “Even I feel quite good about it, to be honest.  I was talking to Chay Hews about it after training on Tuesday night, and we were both saying how focused and intense training was.  We had a lad from Ireland at training with us and he came up to us afterwards and said that it had been ‘different’.  When we asked him what he meant, he said ‘the intensity is so high.  I had trouble keeping up with the pace of the training’.  I was a bit blown away, to be honest – because I thought he was a pretty useful player and it’s just what we do, you know”?

While the news that the Strikers are likely to be at full strength is not a surprise, it appears from reports coming out of Kawana this week that the Sunshine Coast Fire will be, too – and that is most certainly a surprise!  This is because their talismanic midfielder Tyson Holmes, who was sent off for dissent in the Fire’s penultimate regular season fixture three weeks ago, has yet to serve out any kind of suspension.  Confusion has reigned within the Strikers’ camp this week as to how the highly unusual situation surrounding Holmes could have come about.

“Initially, I was under the impression that the offence carried an automatic one-week suspension”, Large said.  “I’m struggling to understand how it all works.  But I hope that they are at full strength so that it allows for a good, competitive game”.

Large said he did not believe his Sunshine Coast Fire counterpart, Aston Bell, would ring any significant changes in his team in reaction to its 1-0 loss to the Strikers at Perry Park a month ago.

“I don’t think he will change a great deal, but he will be a bit wary about the midfield adjustments we made that day”, Large said.

The contest between the two teams’ central midfielders should indeed be a real highlight, with the class, composure and vision of Strikers skipper Chay Hews and Matt Christensen up against the energy, inventiveness and firepower of Holmes and Yuta Gonai, who between them have scored seventeen goals for the champions this year.

And speaking of goals, the Strikers can be confident that Bell will have his team focused on continuing to blot out the threat posed by the QSL’s leading scorer, Matt Thurtell.  The 17-year-old blond bomber is an outstanding prospect who has scored in twelve games for the Strikers this year and tends to score in multiples – in eight of those games he has gone on to score at least two goals.  Significantly, the Strikers have not dropped so much as a single point in any game that has featured Thurtell as a scorer, but Thurtell has not yet scored against the Fire.

It could be suggested that, on the law of averages, Thurtell is ‘due’ to do the business against the Fire.  If he does, an upset will be on the cards and the Strikers will be in with a red-hot chance of wresting the Grand Final hosting rights from their opponents.

The games will take place in Gympie this Sunday, 29 August with the youth game kicking off at 12.30 pm and the main game at 3.00 pm.

Naturally, the players and coaching staff of both the senior and youth teams are hoping for as much support as they can possibly get from Strikers fans and, with this in mind, the Brisbane Strikers will be hiring a bus to take supporters to Gympie.   

if you would like to take in an exciting afternoon of finals football without the hassle of having to drive yourself to Gympie, please send an email to admin@brisbanestrikers.com.au or phone the Brisbane Strikers office on 3257 2166, leaving a message with your name and contact details, whereupon we will call you back.  

The bus will leave Perry Park at 10.30 a.m. on Sunday, returning at the completion of the main game, and a seat will cost $15.  If you wish to pay by direct deposit we can provide account details when you contact us.

So why not contact us and let us take the drama out of getting to and from the drama?

The Fire will have home ground advantage this week – and more on that later – by virtue of the fact that they finished at the top of the QSL table after twenty-one rounds.  Not by a point or two, but by ten.  In Hews’s opinion it is that statistic, and not what happened between the two teams at Perry Park three weeks ago – when the Strikers beat the Fire 1-0 – that makes the Fire favourites to win the major semi-final.

“I think they (the Fire) will be looking at the points table while we’ll be looking at the last game for inspiration” said Hews.  “But they won the first two quite comfortably so we are the huge underdogs in this game, as far as I am concerned”.

But when asked if he felt the ten point gap between the two sides on the league table was an accurate reflection of the difference in their abilities, Hews jumped to the defence of his team.

“No, I don’t”, he said.  “I think that the Fire found a way to play that suits their strengths and they’ve been doing it all season.  They’ve stayed very consistent and that has been the difference.  I think that, with the youthful side of our team, they were under a lot of pressure to perform as well as them, considering how many points they got.  We didn’t lose a lot of games, but they really didn’t drop too many points”.

Around Perry Park, Hews has made no secret of how disappointed he felt after the Grand Final last year, in which the Strikers lost 4-1 to the Redlands City Devils.  Unlike most of his team mates in that game, however, he has stuck around to put it right.  After also losing the 2008 Grand Final with the Strikers (1-0 at the hands of the Fire), Hews is desperate to make it third time lucky this year.

“This one is pretty important to me”, Hews said this week.  “I’ve lost two Grand Finals in a row and I really would like to win this one.  As a footballer you may not get the chance to play many finals, so you really have to make the most of it when you get there.  But we have to get through the semis first”.

The requirement to travel two hours north to Gympie (instead of to the Fire’s usual home ground at Kawana) to play the semi-final came as something of an unwelcome surprise to the Strikers, particularly in view of the fact that the Under-19s semi final between the same two teams is also to be played there, despite the fact that the Strikers finished on top of the table in that competition.  Hews, however, says he was not particularly bothered by switch of venue and even suggested it might play in the Strikers’ favour.

“I don’t think it has any effect on me”, Hews said.  “Maybe it will suit us.  They are not really at their home ground either.  They will have to travel for about an hour, so it’s not really a ‘home’ game for them and they may be at a disadvantage”.

Footnote:  Just a reminder that, in an effort to help Strikers supporters get to Gympie to cheer on their team, the Strikers are putting on a supporters’ bus that will leave Perry Park at 10.30 am on Sunday.   A seat on the bus will cost $15. Supporters who would like to travel on the bus should contact the club by email – admin@brisbanestrikers.com.au or by phoning 3257 2166 and leaving a message.

Goalkeeper Brayden Nielsen was in top form for the Strikers (Photo: Tony Dadson)

The Brisbane Strikers’ youth team tuned up for the finals of the southern division of the Hyundai State Youth League, and finished eleven points clear at the top of the table, with a 3-1 win over the Queensland Academy of Sports in tonight’s rescheduled Round 18 fixture at Perry Park.

Not for the first time, the two teams put on a spectacle that lived up to football’s favourite cliché of ‘a game of two halves’ – with the QAS having much the better of the first stanza to lead 1-0 at the break.  However, the Strikers had much the better of things afterward that to eventually overpower their third-placed opponents for the third time this season.

But if there was a warning to be heeded by the Strikers as they head into the finals series it was that, if they start a game as slowly as they did this one, the result could be beyond their rescuing by half time.  Had the QAS’s finishing been better, or Strikers goalkeeper Brayden Nielsen’s contribution been less effective, that could have been the case tonight.

The QAS dominated possession over the opening twenty minutes, with forwards Jayden Liddicoat and Brandon Borello showing good movement and technique as they were fed a steady stream of ball from their midfield team mates.  Liddicoat, however, probably should have done better than to blast a shot over Brayden Nielsen’s crossbar without testing the Strikers’ goalkeeper in the ninth minute after outpacing the Strikers’ defence in chasing down a ball played over the top.

Nevertheless, Nielsen was to have a busy half.  Seven minutes later a similar straight ball over the top of the Strikers’ central defensive pairing saw Borello anticipating it best to bring the ball down and run into the Strikers’ penalty area with the ball at his feet and the two defenders breathing down his neck.  Borello looked odds-on to score, but Nielsen did extremely well to come off his line and spread his body to get a touch to Borello’s shot and deflect it wide of his left upright.

As the onslaught from the boys in maroon shirts continued Nielsen was in the action again in the twenty-first minute, reacting brilliantly to dive low to his left to get one firm hand to the ball to prevent Erwin Buljubasic’s dipping twenty-yard drive from finishing in the bottom left corner of his goal.

At this stage the Strikers were making heavy weather of the task of making an imprint on the contest, turning possession over frequently to keep themselves on the back foot chasing a QAS side who were technically proficient and well organised.

A rushed half-volley that Bryce Anson skewed over the top of the QAS crossbar from a half-cleared corner kick was the best chance the Strikers could muster before the QAS got the scoreboard ticking over with the opening goal in the twenty-seventh minute.  As the QAS broke quickly and worked the ball forward to Liddicoat, the forward turned and ran at the Strikers’ defence before spotting a supporting run from out wide on the right by Borello.  Liddicoat picked his striking partner out with an excellent pass and Borello, from just inside the penalty area, had a clear sight of goal and let fly with a powerful, low, right-footed drive.  Despite reacting well enough to get a solid hand to the ball, Nielsen was unable to prevent it from finishing in the back of his net.

Conceding this goal appeared to shake the Strikers out of their lethargy, and before too long they were winning a better share of the ball, pushing forward and asking a few questions of the QAS defenders.  However, they created no close-in scoring opportunities before the break, their best chance arriving in the fortieth minute when a cross played in from the right touchline found Anthony Roulston arriving at the edge of the QAS penalty area to latch on with a full-blooded volley that flew a few centimetres over Matthew Stein’s crossbar in the QAS goal.

The second half began with Strikers defender Nathan Alexander producing a copybook sliding tackle to whip the ball off the toes of Liddicoat after the QAS forward had again been fed by a perfectly-directed slide-rule pass from the middle of the park.  Liddicoat was through on goal and was just about to pull the trigger when the ball was spirited away from his possession by Alexander’s intervention.

Six minutes into the second half the Strikers’ back line was caught napping again by the ball through the middle, with Buljubasic the player this time finding himself tearing in on Nielsen’s goal with the ball at his feet and a defender in pursuit.  The Strikers once again had Nielsen to thank for keeping them in the contest as he came racing off his line.  Buljubasic managed to dribble the ball around the goalkeeper but Nielsen was successful in forcing him wide enough to have the QAS midfielder miss his shot with the goal gaping.

That chance was definitely ‘the one that got away’ for the QAS and they were soon to regret it as the Strikers, with better intensity and movement, began to piece their passing game together and wrest the majority share of possession away from their opponents.  The QAS survived a scare when Alex Winters and Dylan Goodman interchanged passes to open up the right side of the QAS defence to send Goodman hurtling down the Strikers’ left touchline before crossing low towards Stein’s near post.  Stein got a glove to the ball to deflect it upwards, and it hovered underneath the QAS crossbar before Tremayne Sadler for the QAS got in a clearing header under pressure from a Strikers attacker.

Nine minutes into the half the Strikers drew level with a quality goal to Jackson Stubbins.  As the QAS turned over possession inside the Strikers’ half the ball was played to Strikers midfielder Nick Danicic, who ran forward into the centre-circle before looking up to aim an exquisitely-guided twenty metre pass with the outside of his right foot to the feet Goodman, who was in full gallop again out wide on the left.  Goodman then took the ball to within about ten metres of the byline before delivering an outswinging cross with his left foot that was too high for Stein to contest.  As Stein turned to watch the ball drop beyond his back post, some seven or eight metres out from his goal, he would have had a brief moment to see Stubbins arriving from a deep position to stab out his right foot to guide, rather than lash, a volley back across Stein to make the ball finish up in the top right corner of his net with the goalkeeper no chance of stopping it.

At 1-1 a change came over the game and the Strikers took control.  Chris Maher’s dipping fifty-ninth minute effort from a direct free kick was just centimetres too high, as was Nicholas Ford for the QAS with his hopeful twenty-five yard drive from a half-cleared corner kick in the seventieth minute, before the Strikers pounced for the crucial third goal of the contest in the eighty-second minute.  With the Strikers having earned a free kick deep inside the QAS half and on the left side of the pitch, Roulston floated the dead ball high beyond the back post.  There, a weak defensive header from the QAS sent the ball back across the goal mouth where Alexander pounced from five yards to guide the ball left-footed past Stein, who got a touch to it but could not keep it out.

Four minutes later the Strikers made sure of the three points.  Again it was their productive left channel that did the damage, with Roulston taking two central defenders out of the action with a well-floated cross that found Stubbins again arriving from deep to control the ball, run it into the QAS penalty area and clinically dispatch a shot high to the right of the advancing Stein and into his net to make the final score 3-1 to his team.

“We were just a little bit too slow in the first half”, Strikers coach Martin Large conceded in his post-match summing up.  “We were too slow with our reactions, we were too slow off the ball, we weren’t creating opportunities early enough and we were getting caught.  When we were getting caught, we were out of shape and they were finding the spaces quite easily.  They were quite sharp and they found the gaps – that’s where we struggled a bit, I think.

“All we (Large and co-coach Milos Strugar) said to them at half time was to shut them (the QAS) down earlier – put them under pressure earlier, to make our decisions a little bit quicker and, as soon as we lost the ball, to get back and make sure that we did our second job, which was defending.  And we did that, so that was good”.

Brisbane Strikers 3 (Stubbins 54, 87; Alexander 83) v QAS 1 (Borello, 27)

Supporters who made the journey to the ground to take in the action that had been denied them by a floodlight problem on Saturday night were treated to an entertaining, topsy-turvy encounter to close out the regular season for 2010.  Two Kwame Yeboah goals for the QAS, split by one from Jordan Farina for the Strikers, had the QAS 2-1 in front at half time but Matt Thurtell, who came on as a substitute for the Strikers, slotted home two second half goals to turn the match around for the Strikers and earn them all three points.

As expected, Strikers coach David Large made a number of changes to his starting eleven in a bid to rest some of the more overworked or injury-troubled players in his squad, and to give others some much-needed game time ahead of the finals.  Midfielder Matt Christensen, defender Matija Simic and Thurtell were given a spell on the bench and defender Jason Shade was left out altogether, while Reagan Alder was given an opportunity to impress on the left side of defence in the position filled so capably by Brad McDonald this season prior to that player leaving to join A-League club North Queensland Fury this week.  Sean Burke was brought back from the forward line into the midfield, while Large experimented with an entirely ‘new’ three-man front line of Jordan Farina, Jonti Richter and Wayne Knipe.

The game was only into its third minute when this new-look Strikers starting eleven was thrown into football’s version of the ‘deep end’ by the opening goal from the QAS.  With the youngsters in possession, an angled ball from the middle of the park was played out towards the left side of their formation where Yeboah won a desperate foot race for the ball with Strikers fullback Myles Carseldine.  Having bumped Carseldine off the ball, Yeboah set himself for a finishing shot that he powered hard and low inside the near post of Strikers goalkeeper Seb Usai, making light of the goalkeeper’s attempt to come off his goal line and reduce Yeboah’s shooting angles.

The QAS lead lasted sixteen minutes before centre-forward Farina levelled the scores with an opportunist goal for the Strikers.  With the Strikers attacking deep inside the QAS half Farina received a pass on the corner of the QAS six yard box, with his back to goal and with plenty of bodies between him and QAS goalkeeper Tim Anderson.  With his options appearing limited, Farina had the presence of mind to flick the ball up and turn quickly to smash a volley goalwards that Anderson barely saw as the ball flashed past him and into the net.

Fifteen minutes later, however, the QAS were back in front with a similar goal to the one they had scored earlier.  Midfielder Ken Dougall strode on to a ball in the middle of the park and took it on a twenty metre dribble before spotting a run by Yeboah and feeding him with another diagonal pass.  Again Yeboah did the rest admirably, his clinical finish leaving Usai with little chance to make a save before the ball rippled his net to make the score 2-1 to the youngsters.

By this stage Large had substituted Burke, who had been troubled by a knock received early in the half, as a precautionary measure and Christensen had entered the fray.  With regular midfield partners Chay Hews and Michael Angus helping Christensen to get a grip on things in the middle of the park, the Strikers went about getting a second equaliser in the second half.  They duly got it midway through, and when they did it was another substitute in Thurtell (having come on for Farina), who brought the Strikers supporters to their feet with a brilliant first-time strike from just outside the QAS penalty area after Thurtell had raced in from the left to be first to a fine twenty-five metre pass from defender Ben Griffin.

With the score now 2-2 the Strikers had the wind in their sails and it was not long before they put an exclamation mark behind their growing confidence with what would prove to be the winning goal.   Flame-haired midfielder Lachlan Dale, elevated to the team from the Strikers’ youth squad, received a pass out wide on the left before taking on and beating his fullback to take the ball to the byline and drive on inside the QAS penalty towards the near post.  Just before getting there he picked out Thurtell on the fringes of the six-yard box with a well timed and accurate pass.  Dale’s excellent work left Thurtell with little more than a regulation tap-in to secure the three points for the Strikers and celebrate the achievement of topping the QSL’s goal scoring list by notching yet another.

With the Sunshine Coast Fire also winning 2-0 in Bundaberg, the result meant that the Strikers finished the season ten points behind the Fire in second place, but also ten points clear of the Far North Queensland Bulls who were surprisingly beaten by the Whitsunday Miners in Mareeba last night.  The Strikers will now prepare for the considerable task of taking on the Fire away from home in the major semi-final in two weeks’ time.   

After the game Large said that he had seen both positives and negatives in his team’s pre-finals outing.

“It wasn’t useful to the extent that I had been hoping for but I was very pleased that, even though we were not playing very well, we got back into that scenario of learning how to win”, Large said.

 “When we got back to 2-2, I was confident of getting a third goal and then, when we got it, I thought we were not in any danger.  But having said that, I think the QAS would have felt they deserved something out of it”.

Of the non-regular starters that he experimented with on the day, Large said that fullback Alder, who he has tended to rate highly in terms of ability while having doubts about his work rate, had made the strongest case for consideration in the finals.

“I thought he was the best on the park today”, Large said.  “In saying that, he has a tendency to relax a bit when he thinks he can, but with a bullet up his backside he did very well.  I now have to seriously ask myself whether I bring him in for the finals”.