Mariners Asian Bound, Sydney and Queensland flop

Central Coast Mariners will play in the Asian Champions League next season after winning the Minor Premiership on the weekend.

Sydney drew 2-2 in one of the games of the season with Melbourne Victory in front 33,000+ fans. Another A-League record.

The Roar crashed at Adelaide 2-0, but were not helped by having....Danny Tiatto sent off in the first half for a short jab.



A great game in Sydney. Storms, sun, goals, and fans heaps of them. Will they be back?

Slowly but surely the Sydney supporter base maybe building. It's going to take time, but clearly 33,000 rocking up today shows Sydney do have a football public and that will be very encouraging to everyone connected with football.

The game:

Victory were always going to spoilt the party. Archie Thompson caused havoc all day.

Sydney FC lacked a forward presence. Alex Brosque despite his goal is not a forward presence, not really. And the Stevie Corica's and Juninho's really couldn't sustain the pace.

Indeed it was Tony Popovic noted for his experience who drifted forward, pushing for a goal when the side were leading 2-1.

A misplaced pass from Brosque, and Melbourne raced away through Thompson and Danny Allsopp slid it home.

Steve Corica had escaped Kevin Muscat's lunge to open the scoring in the 4th minute, things looked good for the big crowd.

But when Mark Milligan scored an own goal straight after half-time Sydney looked doomed.

Alex Brosque got a goal out of nothing. Danny Allsopp countered. Brendan Santalab missed a tap in. Archie did the same.

It was great stuff. Passionate, open football. Great for the fans if not the purists.

Bugger the purists.

Sydney go into the finals with some problems. Can they create, or score enough to win a game. Maybe if they don't have to face Melbourne the form team of the competition.

The Roar v Adelaide

Poor Queensland poor Adelaide.

The Roar blew a fantastic chance to win the minor premiership. Danny Tiatto was sent-off in the first half and a fired up Queensland team lost the plot.

Adelaide with Nathan Burns and Bruce Djite were back and pulling the strings. Djite scored one and then Lucas Pantelis sealed the win.

The Roar were tamed so easily. Very disappointing and now face Sydney FC on Friday without Danny Tiatto.

Adelaide: Well they are pretty, great to watch, when in full flow but you wonder what would have happened if they'd been able to keep Michael Valkanis, Djite, Burns and Bobby Petta injury free.

Adelaide head to the Asian Champions League in March, The Roar play their old friends Sydney next week.