The Football Kingz and Marconi Stallions, two of the lowest-scoring sides in the National Soccer League this season, failed to find the target in battling out a scoreless draw at Ericsson Stadium on February 7, much to the disappointment of the 3148 present - the Kingz biggest home gate at the ground in four months.      As spectacles go, this was a strange encounter, with more football being played in the first fifteen minutes of the second spell than had been seen in the entire first half!      Make no mistake, the first forty-five minutes did little to endorse the image of 'The Beautiful Game' - the brutal game would be a far more apt title! Because, with a few exceptional moments, the first half was riddled with foul play, and neither side should be proud that this was the case - Marconi coach Rale Rasic afterwards described it as being akin to "a wrestling match".      From the very first incident, just one hundred seconds into the match - when Jeremy Christie could easily have been a candidate for the shortest starting debut in the history of the game when referee Con Diomis took a decidedly lenient view of his hauling down Alex Brosque when the striker was through on goal - the first half was one of niggling, unnecessary fouls, misplaced passes and generally scrappy football.      As with the teams, the referee shouldn't be overjoyed by some of his decision-making, either. Mr Diomis mixed the excellent with the exacerbating, the impeccable with the impetuous, each in equal proportion to the other.      His handling of some incidents was well worthy of praise, but the crowd weren't slow to tell him when he had made a sow's ear out of a silk purse, as was the case in the 22nd minute.      Then, a striking incident involving Marconi's Shane Webb and the Kingz Patricio Almendra saw the Chilean fall to the canvas, but no action taken as a result, despite the referee consulting with his assistant, Paul Smith, whose focus on the offside line meant he did not see the key events just to his left which, on another occasion, would have seen the visitors reduced to ten men.      Midst the spite, there was the odd moment to savour, such as in the sixteenth minute, when Raf de Gregorio, Harry Ngata and Almendra combined to reward Andy Vlahos' darting diagonal run into Marconi's penalty area. The striker found himself crowded out, but reversed the ball to Almendra, whose deft chip beat Marconi's goalkeeper, Michael Turnbull, but also cleared the crossbar from ten yards.      On the half-hour, Almendra led a two-on-two break, and drew the second defender before slipping the ball across to Vlahos. But he took the ball too wide of the target, and the chance was lost.      Three minutes later, it was Marconi's turn to feature as an attacking force, Brosque bursting between defenders on a charge into the penalty area on receipt of a flick from strike partner, Joe Spiteri.      The legs of Michael Utting saved the Kingz on this occasion, while the goalkeeper, who was struggling throughout with a knee injury, was relieved to see de Gregorio in position to clear off the line in stoppage time, after he had flapped at a Chad Gibson corner which was laid back by Tony Sekulic into the path of Michael Thwaite, who let fly from the edge of the penalty area. The second spell began in far more positive, football-filled fashion, with a stream of chances at both ends inside the first thirteen minutes of the spell. Just three minutes into it, the Kingz squandered a glorious chance to break the deadlock, when Vlahos' pressure paid off as Angelo Costanzo's clearance ricocheted off him straight to the feet of Ngata.      The Kingz captain for the day, who received a special honour before the match in recognition of his one hundredth appearance for the club last week, found himself one-on-one with Turnbull, and Almendra steaming up in support.      Dominic Longo was right on the Chilean's shoulder, however, and when Ngata squared the ball, the defender did enough to prevent Almendra from striking the ball cleanly, much to the relief of Costanzo, who was able to clear off the line, and spark a Marconi counter-attack.      It culminated in a free-kick, which Darren McDonald delivered into the danger zone past a static Kingz defence. In stole Thwaite, who rifled a twelve-yarder just past Utting's left-hand upright. Spiteri, the scorer of two goals in the corresponding fixture across the Tasman, came agonisingly close to breaking the deadlock seconds later, his header of a cross resulting from a Brosque break all but taking

the paint off the same post past which Thwaite's shot had just flashed. Back came the Kingz, with Ngata and Vlahos combining brilliantly on the left, the latter engineering space for a vicious curling cross. It fell invitingly for James Pritchett, who had been a constant thorn in Marconi's side to this point. His volley thundered goalwards, only to be diverted over the crossbar by Gibson, but with which part of his anatomy? An arm? Pritchett certainly thought so, but referee Diomis couldn't say with any certainty, hence a corner. This was cleared, sparking a Spiteri counter-attack which culminated in a splendid cross-field ball for Brosque. Cutting in, Marconi's leading marksman lashed his shot towards the bottom right-hand corner of Utting's net, only for the goalkeeper to turn the effort to safety. Cue another Kingz conquest, with de Gregorio - a strong performance - releasing Pritchett down the right. His curling cross was met on the run by half-time substitute Mark Burton, who was to produce his best forty-five minutes in a Kingz shirt in ages with this performance. Only the goal-post denied him the goal his eighteen-yard effort merited on this occasion. Marconi weren't having a bar of this, and promptly stormed downfield once more, Webb leading the charge this time, with Grant Last and Brosque in support. The first-mentioned's cross was flicked on by the second-mentioned towards the last-mentioned, but Utting was off his line in a flash to prevent Brosque from making the most of the opportunity. At this point, the helter-skelter nature of the half came to a temporary halt, to be replaced by solid defensive work - Mauro Donoso and Gibson were the pick of those charged with denying goals - and some wayward finishing, with Spiteri and Burton the closest to hitting the target in the next twenty minutes. The unpleasant aspects of the first half also returned at times, with the worst incident taking place off-the-ball in the 65th minute, but a matter of two yards behind referee Diomis, who couldn't have seen it. Certainly Pritchett never anticipated what happened, as Marconi substitute Luke Casserly collided with the Kingz danger-man while seemingly running in opposite directions - seemingly being the operative word. The camera doesn't lie, however, and the sight of Pritchett heading to the sidelines clutching his jaw five minutes later was not one which the visitors would have been overly sorry to see, one suspects. Buoyed on by their faithful, the home team mounted a string of raids late on, with one fine six-man move on the left culminating in Ngata curling a shot wide of the post upon receipt of Vlahos' crossfield ball twelve minutes from time. Seconds later, Burton couldn't believe his ill-fortune. He picked out Vlahos bursting into the penalty area, and after checking and turning, the home team's most prolific marksman in recent weeks whipped in a cross which Burton met perfectly with a downward header. But Gibson and Turnbull combined to block the effort in the shadows of the crossbar, with Webb hoisting the loose ball to safety. Unperturbed, the home team kept coming, and in stoppage time forced a further flurry of chances in an attempt to enhance their play-off hopes. Ngata and Burton teamed up brilliantly on the right, the latter's low cross fizzing across the face of goal - it only needed a touch to snatch the match from Marconi's grasp. Substitute Steven Turner then let fly from twenty-five yards, only for Turnbull to smother, while Almendra, with the last chance of the match, fired his free-kick over the crossbar - his finishing was not a patch on his creativity in this match, and it was as a result of such profligacy that the Kingz failed to record the win they needed to stay well in contention for the top six. While they remain so, the need for other results to go their way becomes ever more important. That is also the case for Marconi, as they bid to avoid the ignominy of finishing last in the NSL for the first time in the competition's twenty-six year history. Kingz:          Utting; Perry, Anthopoulos, Donoso; Pritchett (Campbell, 70), Christie (booked, 2) (Turner, 84), de Gregorio, Beldham (Burton, 46); Almendra, Ngata, Vlahos Marconi:     Turnbull; Longo, Costanzo, Sekulic; Last (booked, 34) (Casserly, 61), McDonald, Thwaite (booked, 80), Webb, Gibson; Spiteri, Brosque Referee:     Con Diomis