IT WAS a moment that had all the atmosphere of Juliet’s tomb.*

Poised on a knife edge between ecstatic victory and an agonising sense of loss, reincarnated Mariner Adam Kwasnik approached the penalty spot. As he casually bounced the ball I had a momentary flashback to that final piece of Mile magic last December.

Who will ever forget that heart-stopping penalty he scored to win our last match against Sydney as the clock ticked over to 90 minutes ? Surely we could hear the sound of history repeating.

Instead, there was a collective moan of disbelief from those in yellow as Bolton lunged to the right and saved Kwassie's shot. But The Mariners, with their characteristic grit, kept their heads up and fought until the very death of the game. Only another great save from Bolton stopped Macca grabbing a win at the eleventh hour.

As a Mariners fan, I've heard this story many times before. Sometimes it has a happy ending and sometimes it doesn't, but the central message remains the same -
"We never give up the fight."

Perhaps it is merely fan bias, but I swear you can almost smell the adrenaline in the air when The Mariners start to really pressure their opponents. In the last fifteen minutes of this game, there was a sense of determination that lit up the pitch like a sea of neon. During the TV coverage, Bozza himself commented that of the teams he'd played with, only Man Utd could rival CCM for showing such a will to win.

Sadly, Bozza is one of the few commentators that gives such credit to the team. It was a frustrating result but worse than that is the continued frustration I feel with the wilful attempts to downgrade and even at times ignore the boys from Gosford. It is football snobbery at its worst.

A prime example was last week's "new, improved" Fox Sports FC. Despite running for an extra half-hour, The F3 Derby was the ONLY match of the round that failed to rate a mention. Can anyone explain why every other match was deemed worthy of discussion except that one ? This is supposed to be a comprehensive football show giving 45 minutes air time to the A-League, yet apparently some teams are more equal than others.

Poor old Leo Bertos had his brilliant goal ignored as well. Let's face it, there's only one team lower down the A-League hierarchy than CCM - the Nix.

The trouble with this blatant and continued bias is that it doesn't serve the A-League well. Respected media commentators who damn us with faint praise give strong ammunition to the CCM bashers. Rivalry is healthy but endless vilification by other so-called football supporters (for supposedly playing "ugly" football and even ludicrously being accused of racism) is unacceptable.

Lavicka himself admitted that his team played some dreaded "long balls" and that The Mariners defence was extremely effective. Heff shut down Danning the wonder boy. The result, he said, could have gone either way. Despite their coach's comments, many Sydney fans seem to be deluding themselves that we somehow "dragged down" their usually elegant style of play.

Still, the fact we played Sydney at least guarantees us about twenty minutes discussion of the match on Fox Sports FC (although none of it will be about us). It'll all be about Lavicka and his tactics plus repeated shots of Bolton's save.

Perhaps it's time we concentrated on facts, rather than opinions. Such as the fact that The Mariners after three rounds have the equal best defensive record in the league. And the fact that we have one of the most successful coaches in the league. A bit more clinical in our finishing in the upcoming weeks and we'll be firing on all cylinders.

Like it or not, we will continue to believe in ourselves. No team, Sydney included, has a god-given right to more attention than us.

"Football is a symphony, not a cacophony" sniffed dear old Fozz this week. I beg to differ. The brutal noise of The Stooges can be just as uplifting as Mozart, passion and determination is sometimes more exciting to watch than an elegant series of passes.

It will be a great day for the A-League when a team is judged, not by their style of play or the nationality of their players and coaches but by the size of their achievements.

(*Trying to compete with Michael's "Dickensian juxtaposition" of Zullo and Kruse)