So the Central Coast Mariners are starting yet another long away period where they will be on the road with numerous away games and even a few ‘away from home' home games. Personally as a Mariners fan I find it a little disappointing that this has happened a second year running. The net effect is that even though the A-League Season is now longer plus the byes, Central Coast supporters are only seeing one additional game at most in the last two seasons. What do we the Central Coast locals get to see in this seven weeks of Mariners being AWOL from Gosford? We get to watch the grass grow on Bluetongue Stadium.

So I have to ask the question. Why do we have to wait out this period as the turf is re-laid on BTS? The months leading up to the A-League season sees the stadium used maybe once every two months for a rugby league game or two played by teams who have no association or loyalty to the Coast. So why do Gosford City Council wait till now to re-turf the stadium? And why does it take them so long to do it?

It seems I have to mow my lawn every second day at this time of the year. Maybe they need a better grass seed. In the defence of the council I am sure they wait till this time of year for a good growing weather to change the grass from a winter type to a summer breed.

But this must be something that other stadiums in Australia are doing. How come Sydney FC and Roar do not have this issue? The grounds they play on get much heavier use through the winter months, yet their grounds seem to be okay all through summer without a change of turf. Surely the Mariners bring more money to Gosford than some out of town oval ball teams. Gosford council needs to pay the Mariners more respect.

Perhaps Gosford City Council are upset that the Mariners new Centre Of Excellence is being built by the Mariners in Wyong Council's municipality?

He's Swimming

Young Mathew Ryan might not have set the world on fire  yet, but he was very solid last week against Victory and except for that error, he played pretty well against Sydney. So the kid has made one mistake that cost us a goal but I am sure he will learn from it.

It appears that Graham Arnold intends to keep Ryan between the sticks for the Mariners first team and show the kid that he believes in him. This is the same kind of faith and support that helped Danny Vukovic become the keeper he was for the club.

This is a win-win so far, a great win for Ryan and a great win for Graham Arnold. As long as Graham shows support and faith in players that deserve it I think he will keep the locker room right behind him.

Arnold threw Mathew in the deep end and he appears to have found out how to doggy paddle. Now he just need to learn freestyle and butterfly.

Newest Little Mariner

Congratulations to Daniel McBreen for all three of his memorable moments this week.

The first of course was his goal against  Victory, opening his account in a very emphatic and stylish method.

The second was the birth of his first child which has been well publicised this week and we hope that he is not too tired and keeps scoring more goals. Noah please let your dad get enough sleep before game days.

The third and arguably most impressive action this week was that fitting tribute celebration he held after the goal. Given that the actual labour took almost two days I believe Gabrielle wishes the delivery had been as quick as his celebration was.

Congratulations to Daniel and Gabrielle on the birth of their son Noah.

The Second Coming

So we only need to wait one more week for the second coming of the Mariners' new Messiah. Perez will be back barring emergency or injury (please no, the Mariners can not suffer any more bad luck this year) in just one more week. I do not usually get too excited about players before they have proved they are worthy of praise but even the 30-odd minutes of play we have seen from Perez so far was enough to get me looking forward to his return.