Blog: Forgetting Lessons Learnt

IT'S NOT often that I go into a match feeling confident but on Thursday night going into a match against a team that had yet win a game for the year I thought it would be three points to the home side.

But there was one man I didn't count on. That man, Ernie Merrick and his decision to regress back a couple of years and get it tactically completely wrong.

Maybe he has fond memories of the 2007-08 season (I know I don't) and thought Thursday night and the first game of the new season would be an opportune time to revisit them. It is the only reason I can think of for some of Merrick's decisions on Thursday night.

Last season saw our esteemed leader make leaps and bounds in terms of his tactical nouse with numerous key decisions throughout the season that in the end took us to the double for the second time.

However, he seemed to have completely forgotten the lessons learnt from two years ago and reverted back to playing favourites. How else would you explain his decision to start both Broxham and Brebner in the starting line-up. I mean it didn't work in Season 3 with Broxham, Brebner and Muscat all playing in the midfield so why did he ever think that Broxham/Brebner combination would work this time around.

The Grand Final of last year saw a midfield combination of Celeski, Pondeljak, Hernandez and Ward and that seemed to work fairly well. One criticism of Merrick is that when he thinks is onto something good, he tends to stick to it, sometimes to the detriment of the team.

On Thursday night I would have been happy for Merrick to stick with that Grand Final combination, maybe putting in Broxham or Brebner for the injured Celeski, but not both of them and confining Ward to the bench. Neither Broxham nor Brebner provide that much in the way of creativity, with the extent of Brebner's being his propensity to hit countless long balls. And if Broxham's corner attempts on Thursday night were anything to go by, well, there's not much hope there either.

I am sure pretty sure every man and his dog saw the difference that Ward made to the team when he came onto the field and it was no coincidence that Hernandez also played a more influential role on the game as well. But bringing him on in the 74th minute was a case of too little too late and he should probably have come on in lieu of Ney Fabiano. Hopefully it's a lesson learnt and that common sense prevails against Brisbane Roar next weekend.

Apart from the 2-0 loss, the other significant event from Thursday night was the injury to Kevin Muscat and it will be interesting to see how Merrick responds. Will he resort to a stopgap measure or will he bite the bullet and give a start to either Stephen Pace or promote Matthew Foschini from the Youth team?

Personally, I would like to see Foschini given the chance. Merrick has a good record with young defenders, with both Adrian Leijer and Sebastian Ryall springing to mind as success stories. Therefore the young defender appears the natural choice.

A loss may be the early kick in the arse that the team requires to remove any complacency or over-confidence that may have set in and I am sure as hell not going to be as confident going into next week's match against Brisbane.