IN GREAT football matches it’s not uncommon to get shivers as the game ebbs and flows, have the hairs stand up on the back of your neck as a winner is scored, or simply be moved by the emotion of the night.
In my time as a Jets fan, I can probably count only four or five such times where my mood has been shifted in such a dramatic way over 90 blissful minutes.
Of course, yesterday will never be considered a great game when compared with fixtures both past and future, but in the context of A-League season 2009/10, its importance should not be lost.
It is for this reason I felt many of the aforementioned climaxes during, and at the end of yesterday's fixture against Gold Coast United.
Now, one might expect I am about to waffle on about how the Jets became the first team in history to beat GCU. Whilst it's great we did, it's not for this reason I felt such sensation. And nor should it be a reason for any Jets, or A-League fan to gloat - it only makes you as bad as them.
No, GCU were always going to meet their match in the A-League - be it us, or one of the other eight teams. Bleiberg, Palmer, J. Culina, Rees et al...they all knew their time would come - it was a matter of when, not if. Some of their more gullible fans took their PR to heart, but that's another matter entirely.
Why I did get such a buzz was because we beat them when we did, we did it against the odds, and we did it in a manner which proves things can click in this, the Branko era.
Over the past three weeks GCU have been absolutely scintillating. Full credit to them, they've set a high standard that has both challenged and questioned the rest of the A-League.
But we - perhaps incredibly after the woeful effort in Perth seven days prior - were better.
One on one, our players showed more commitment and enterprise.
Tactically, Branko outwitted Bleiberg by nullifying his three amigos (J. Culina, Smeltz and Porter), meaning GCU needed to look to other areas for inspiration. Without Minniecon to call on from the bench, only Milson and Anderson could manage to slightly improve GCU's impetus. And this after Branko told the world what he was going to do on Thursday.
And Saturday.
Written off by all and sundry, this performance will force fans, pundits and bookies alike to sit up and respect the Jets as a competitive force this season.
Any negative column inches stemming from our Perth fiasco were well deserved. Only the most praising press need be seen and heard this week.
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The sports-sub at the Newcastle Herald must have been on smoko last Friday night when the final calls were made for Saturday's edition of the Hunter's premier yarn.
In lead up coverage to yesterday's clash with GCU, a half-page feature on Angelo Costanzo's seemingly imminent 300th National League appearance nestled against a hypothetical line-up and subs bench.
Costanzo was named in neither the starting side, or on the pine.
For those who don't know Constanzo did manage his 300th appearance yesterday. Congratulations Angelo on a marvellous achievement.
