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24Dec22
Distance Derby Produces Dour Draw
by Jeremy Ruane
Perth Glory and Wellington Phoenix produced a dour 1-1 draw in their latest "Distance Derby" in the Isuzu Ute A-League on December 23, with the second half of this Macedonia Park affair proving particularly tedious for the 3977 fans present.
From the outset, both teams rather cancelled each other out, and it took fourteen minutes for the first noteworthy event in the contest to materialise. David Williams picked out Jack Clisby with a cross which invited the fullback to let fly. The ball struck the hand of Yan Sasse in Wellington's penalty area, but referee Casey Reibelt swiftly rebuffed claims for a spot-kick from the home team, who then saw Clisby's cross-shot plucked from beneath his crossbar by Oli Sail.
Three minutes later, the home team produced some delightful possession football to draw Wellington in before swiftly spreading the ball wide and working their way around their opponents. Mustafa Amini combined with Ryan Williams on the right to create an opening which Keegan Jelacic squandered badly.
Perth, who had enjoyed the better of the opening exchanges, deservedly opened the scoring in the 22nd minute. Amini and Aaron McAneff teamed up outside the area to pick out Jelacic, who played the ball wide to Ryan Williams.
He in turn fed the overlapping Salim Khalifi, who did Lucas Mauragis a treat before whipping in a cross to the near post which drew an exquisite finish from David Williams, the former Wellington man finding the far corner of the net to leave his old club trailing on the scoreboard.
Wellington responded instantly, Bozhidar Kraev and Mauragis combining on the left before the latter picked out Sasse with a cross. His shot on the turn drew a fine save from Liam Reddy, while at the other end of the park on the half-hour, Khalifi's adventurous run inside past two opponents culminated in a curling effort which Sail greedily grabbed.
The visitors drew level in the 31st minute with a terrific goal. Steven Ugarkovic fed Kraev, whose driving run through the heart of Perth's midfield culminated in a pass to Sasse. A deft flick brought Oskar Zawada into play, and he neatly tucked the ball beyond Reddy and just inside the far post - a quality equaliser.
Wellington had their tails up after this - not bad going when one considers this game kicked off at 12.30am NZ time, an hour when Ufuk Talay's charges would usually be snoring their heads off!
David Ball's measured cross to the far post in the 35th minute invited Zawada to double his tally with a fine volley, but the save Reddy produced to deny him was even better. Four minutes later, Khalifi's vital tracking run prevented Sasse from getting in a shot on goal after he'd been released into the left-
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hand side of the penalty area by Kraev's precise pass.
Back came Perth, Amini and Khalifi combining with Ryan Williams on the right, from where the ball was played inside to Jelacic. He evaded a couple of challenges, only to see his shot threaten the corner flag rather than the far post of the goal defended by Sail, who produced a splendid save to deny McAneff's swerving thirty yard piledriver on the stroke of half-time, as the home team looked to finish the half with a flourish by regaining the lead.
After the interval, goalscoring opportunities were few and far between. Two came within a minute soon after the resumption of play, with Reddy responsible for keeping the scores level on both occasions, denying Ugarkovic then Zawada - a sharp shot on the turn - following the exertions of Callan Elliot on the right.
Halfway through the second half, Perth were prevented from taking the lead by another fine Sail save, the 'keeper tipping Clisby's angled free-kick over the bar, much to the dismay of the local faithful, a number of whom had indulged in the stadium walk after twenty minutes as the silent protests against A-League management's Grand Finals decision continued apace.
With Wellington tiring as the combination of travel, the Perth heat and the ungodly kick-off time (from the visitors' perspective) kicked in, the home team should have kicked on to win the match in the final ten minutes.
Instead, both teams managed to avoid scoring own goals in this time. Beanpole defender Mark Beevers, the tallest player on the pitch at 6 foot 4, headed past his own post to prevent a Joshua Laws ball into the danger zone from causing problems, while with two minutes remaining, Zawada directed a defensive header against the top of his own crossbar as an Adam Zimarino corner invited attention from the home team's attackers.
Frustratingly for Perth, what was a clear corner wasn't awarded them, and they had to settle for a share of the spoils in a distance derby which many watching in New Zealand would have found challenging to watch without dozing off at some stage in proceedings, so tedious and one-dimensional was the action on offer.
Perth: Reddy; Muir, Lachman, Beevers, Clisby (Forde, 86); Khalifi, Amini (Duncan, 86), McAneff (booked, 90); R. Williams (Zimarino, 86), Jelacic (booked, 81), D. Williams (booked, 63) (Ivanovic, 64)
Wellington: Sail; Elliot, Wootton (booked, 5), Laws (booked, 54), Mauragis (Sutton, 46); Sasse (Barbarouses, 69), Ugarkovic, Lewis (booked, 52) (Pennington, 76), Kraev (Rufer, 90); Ball, Zawada (booked, 90)
Referee: Casey Reibelt
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