Blackman The Focus As Strikers Aim To Topple Arch Rivals

“Neutralise Shaun Blackman”!

That’s the message reverberating around Perry Park this week as the Brisbane Strikers prepare for the visit of the title-chasing Sunshine Coast Fire on Saturday night.

The evergreen, elongated Sunshine Coast centre-forward has been identified by the Strikers as the lynchpin of the Fire’s awesomely consistent campaign, which sees them within one point of taking the Hyundai QSL’s champions’ trophy away from Perry Park.  Only a win to the Strikers will prevent that from happening on Saturday night.

Many QSL observers would point to the Fire’s energetic and influential attacking midfielder, Tyson Holmes, as their danger man.  But Brisbane Strikers fullback Brad McDonald said today that Blackman’s ability to link with his support players was the biggest threat the Strikers would have to deal with if they are to beat the Fire for the first time this season.

“They are good on the counter”, McDonald said.  “They just hit Shaun Blackman and he lays it off for Tyson Holmes and the midfielders coming through, and we’ve got to track the runners”.

There should be no shortage of motivation for either team going into the game.  Despite the Strikers winning their last four games in succession, the Fire maintain a ten-point lead over the young men from Perry Park with four games remaining.  That means a draw on Saturday will ensure it is impossible for the Strikers to overhaul them.  And as far as the Sunshine Coast team is concerned, what better place for them to be declared champions for 2010 than at the home ground of the 2009 champions?

For their part the Strikers are realistic enough to accept that, even if they win on Saturday and prevent the Fire from travelling back up the Bruce Highway as champions-elect, they will probably only be delaying the inevitable.  The Fire would have to fail to win any of their last three fixtures for the Strikers to be able to catch them and, given the Fire’s consistency this season, that seems unlikely.

But McDonald says his team will draw motivation for Saturday night’s contest from other factors.

“At the start of the last round (of fixtures) we spoke about winning seven straight, and we want to keep that up.  We’ve got three from three so far, so hopefully we can make it four from four”, McDonald said, adding that it was important for the Strikers to prove to themselves that they can beat the Fire before meeting them again later this season.  Any result other than a loss on Saturday will ensure the Strikers at least finish second in the league table to earn the right to play the Fire in the finals.

The previous meetings between the two teams this year both finished in wins by the odd goal for the Fire (3-2 at Perry Park and 2-1 at Kawana).  The Strikers will feel, however, that they did not enter either of those two fixtures in the kind of form they have been displaying in recent weeks.  There is a growing confidence within their camp that they are hitting their best form at the tail end of the season.  Whether that confidence is justified will be seen by how they perform against the league leaders this time around.

“I think we can do it”, McDonald said.  “We came close both times this year.  We definitely had our chances – we just couldn’t finish them.  But we’ve been scoring plenty of goals lately and hopefully that continues on Saturday”.

If the Strikers are to score the goals they need to beat the Fire, and thereby justify McDonald’s confidence that they can do the job, the Strikers will need their forwards to be fit and firing.  With this in mind there are worries over the fitness of Sean Burke.  Burke had to be substituted with soreness behind a knee last Sunday in his team’s 3-0 win over the Whitsunday Miners, and was unable to train on Tuesday night.  If Burke cannot start on Saturday, Strikers coach David Large may be forced to reshuffle his team or bring in new striker Jason Doherty or youth team player Dylan Goodman.  Doherty played a full game and scored for the youth team last week while Goodman played the entire second half for the senior team and turned in a promising performance.

Elsewhere in the Strikers’ team, defender Matija Simic is now fully recovered from a minor ankle injury and is available for selection, while utility player Jordan Farina’s rolled ankle will be assessed late in the week.

Meanwhile, the Fire are certain to be without the services of midfielder Corey Towle, who was sent off in last week’s 2-0 win over the Queensland Academy of Sports and is therefore suspended.  Towle was the scorer of one of the Fire’s goals in their 3-2 win at Perry Park in Round 4.

Supporters of both clubs will have every incentive to turn up to Perry Park early on Saturday.  That will enable them to take in the curtain-raiser between their respective Under-19 teams which, curiously, offers a mirror-image of the scenario facing the two teams in the main game.  The Brisbane Strikers lead the Southern Division of the Hyundai State Youth League by five points over the Fire, and can clinch the championship with a win, while the Fire will be desperate to earn their first win against their rivals this season to keep themselves in with a chance of winning the championship.

The main game will kick off at 7.00 pm, with the curtain-raiser getting underway at 4.45 pm.