After having almost 24 hours to digest last night's events and continuing on from the musical theme of my previous effort I have this time around to use those famous words of Alanis Morrissette to declare the Grand Final an ironic one and in the process declare it an almost perfect summation of the season that preceded it.

Isn't it ironic don't you think that your captain, who has had only one penalty saved (he tapped in the rebound and I'm not counting that one against Gold Coast United) in five years, misses your team's first attempt in the lottery that is a penalty shootout?

The stunned silence that greeted the metallic sound of ball hitting post and bouncing away was one that I have never heard in all my times at a Victory game. I must clarify it by saying it was stunned silence from the Victory fans, there was a whole bunch of other fans at the end of the ground who enjoyed immensely. As probably did most of the fans of every other club in the country. I think the words of Kevin Muscat's twitter alter ego best sum up how all we Melbourne Victory fans felt at the time when he states (language warning kiddies): "This isn't just a catastrophe, not a catastrof**k, not even a c**ntastophe. This is a full on f**ken C**TASTROF**K!" 

Isn't it ironic don't you think that in a season where we have already lost two key players to season ending knee injuries amongst a whole host of others, that a third should occur during the most important match of the season and to a player that would have been key to our possible success. When Archie Thompson went down and wasn't getting up in a hurry, you had a distinct feeling that this wasn't going to be our night.

Isn't it also ironic don't you think that only ten days after criticising the very same surface that Archie Thompson does his knee and is out until 2011? I'm not one for conspiracy theories but did Ian Collins and the Etihad Stadium management get their revenge on Saturday night?

Isn't it ironic don't you think that in a week where the Victorian Police saw it fit to make a statement warning fans about their behaviour leading up to the game (would we see that kind of thing before an AFL or NRL Grand Final? I don't think so), that we had one of the best atmospheres that an A-League game has ever seen and not a single flare in sight? Even the singing of the national anthem sent a tingle up my spine. Let's ditch the Green & Gold Army and just get the fans of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide to combine to support the Socceroos.

Isn't it ironic don't you think that the venerable Craig Foster praises the system employed by Vitezslav Lavicka, a system that he claimed that most A-League coaches don't understand? Well, I think they would have understood the system employed last night pretty well. The system of constant fouling in order to stop any Melbourne attacks turned the first half into trench warfare and a diabolical spectacle as a result. It was a system that was styled to the refereeing style of Strebre Delovski and it worked to a tee.

Isn't it ironic don't you think that the player who scored Sydney's goalscorer was lucky to still be on the park after the red mist descended and he decided that a two-footed studs up late tackle on Adrian Leijer would be a good idea? That kind of tackle has earned many a player a red card in previous matches and it was probably a good thing from Mark Bridge and Sydney's point of view that Matthew Breeze was on the sidelines as the fourth official.

Isn't it ironic don't you think that in a season where Melbourne Victory players have been called offside incorrectly many a time, that the linesman gets it pretty much spot on with his call to disallow Rodrigo Vargas' effort and then we see Sydney score pretty much straight away? Never has so quickly ecstasy turned to despair.

It has been a season where Melbourne Victory have shown immense character to overcome many obstacles to only lose the Premiership by a point and the Championship on a penalty shootout. This isn't ironic, it just plain sucks.