Western Sydney Wanderers boss Tony Popovic described the chopped up surface as “very ordinary” while Brisbane Roar's John Aloisi sounded an exasperated note saying: “I don’t know what can be done.”

A concert by UK group Coldplay earlier this month has been blamed for the state of the pitch, with only sections of the turf replaced. The patchwork look was exacerbated by the transition from winter to summer grass.

Suncorp Stadium management tweeted just before the match that the pitch condition was within acceptable levels.

Popovic was clearly not convinced: “It was hard to play for both (teams). I’m not just talking about us, Brisbane as well, I’m sure that would have liked a nice pitch at home.

“It was so difficult to play on that. You could see it was a scrappy game, there weren’t many chances in the game.

“Two good footballing teams that wanted to play didn’t have a chance to play today. In the end we both adapted. It was a scrappy game that’s all we could do.”

Aloisi said post-match: “The chances (Wanderers) created were probably us giving away the ball – whether that was the pitch or not I don’t know.

“It was the same for both sides, I’m not going to use that as an excuse. It doesn’t help us because we’re a team that likes to play good football, especially at home, but I don’t know what can be done.”