I KNEW the sudden-death Roar Women v Sydney FC Women semi final was going to be good. I just had no idea how good.

And I had no idea that it was going to involve airhorns, injuries, beer, penalties, straight red cards, falcons, extra time, penalty shootouts, striking keepers, and me being on TV.

I can safely say that for a match that served to silence any chicks-can’t play-football critics, it was the best $5 I’ve spent. Ever.

First-placed favourites Roar Women entered the match with the weight of expectation after taking 25 points from a possible season 30. Fourth-placed Sydney had plenty of ammunition of their own, though, boasting the league’s lead goalscorer Leena Khamis, who’d bagged seven goals in 10 games. The winner would meet the impossibly-tanned-for-their-home-climate Canberrans in the inaugural W-League grand final.

But we weren’t discussing the stats, having inadvertently sat directly — and I mean directly — behind a chick with an airhorn. Despite warning us that she was going to let rip each time the Sydney keeper took a goal kick, she practically had us convulsing in our seats with each toot. But it was strangely disappointing when she got shut down by security and had to go — as my mate Geoff deemed it — ‘manual’.

The fair weather fans were out in force, proving that Brisbane likes a winner — or perhaps just beer, as Ballymore had (have they been reading my blog?) turned on the taps for the afternoon at the fair, no-higher-than-the-entry-fee price of $5 per beer. Either way, the W-League converted some fans this afternoon with a match that had it all.

The game kicked off in a crowd-pleasingly frenetic pace, with the players trading body blows that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a men’s league before the unfortunately surnamed Tameka Butt put the Roar 1-0 up in the 29th.

They couldn’t find another goal and lost key midfielder Ferguson to a knee injury before Sydney super sub O’Neill equalised with a cracker shot to the top right corner on her first touch of the ball.

Neither team could snare a second, despite an accidental handball by Brogan that set Colthorpe up for a penalty in the 78th. She missed, but Small was issued a straight red card immediately afterwards for — allegedly — dissent and not, as one friend joked, a nipple cripple.

Plenty of agricultural action then ensued as both teams tried to break the deadlock. Two Sydney players falconed each other as one attempted to keep the ball in and headed it at pace into her team mate’s face.

One deflected shot sent hurtling towards our section of the stand prompted a girl just near us to squeal ‘I can’t catch! which drew some wry chuckles from those of us who, well, can.

Extra time ended, the scores remained deadlocked, and we made a cameo on TV, having sat not just behind Airhorn Annie, but the Roar Women bench whom the ABC was attempting to capture looking pensive as they psyched up for a penalty shootout.

If you didn’t see the penalties, you need to google them now. In one of the best head-messing efforts I’ve ever seen, it was keeper v keeper as young Queensland keeper Casey Dumont stepped up to slot in Roar Women’s first penalty, before walking back to the goal mouth to defend it.

Bolger missed Sydney’s second penalty when her shot rebounded off the upright. Beaumont sprayed hers over the top of the goal to the audible ‘oh nos’ of the Queensland crowd, before Dumont saved Walsh’s shot to give Roar Women the victory: 5-4 on penalties.

For just $5 we got over 120 minutes of knife-edge, grand final-style entertainment that raised the bar for the W-League and quite possibly football in general in Australia.

The real final will now be played out at Ballymore between the uber-tanned Canberrans and the slightly-less-tanned-despite-hailing-from-the-sunshine-state Queenslanders. Here’s hoping for some more of the same.