Disagree , o’Neill is a quality player , problem atm is the 2 imports at the back , very slow.
but that said we should surely beat CCM 

O’Shea came from a side that won promotion last season so not struggling. 

O’Shea also turned down a transfer to Championship side Sheffield Utd the season before last; opting instead for Bury (and presumably more money). 

To say nothing good comes out of English division is like saying nothing good comes out of the A League ... some players come here for the money, lifestyle, opportunity (eg Ola at Victory) in the same way some players turn down a Championship side for a lower division. 

To assume england has all their players ranked by division is stupidity ... and shows a lack of understanding on how football works in countries where a pyramid operates. 

@Waz, agree on your point it is not all black and white. O'Shea I do rate, feel he adds to the side as a visa player. But as a collective the others not so much (Have hopes with AWH though) , either they are fairly shocking or don't really stand out compared to other Aussies.

When we look at Brisbane's top visa players 
Broich came from the Bundesliga 
Corona from La Liga
Berisha 2.Bundesliga, played Bundesliga included scoring in the UCL group stages
Van Dijk, from the second dutch flight where he was banging them in 
Kristensen from the Dutch Top flight after spending years at Copenhagen winning titles and playing UCL football
Bautheac from Ligue 1 where he made 150 appearances and played Europa League footy. 

Sure some players have come out of nowhere and become great A League players. Even Henrique became a legend after being plucked out but it is vital for players to have had some big game experience at a high level. This is not 2006. None of the existing players CV's look close to the players above (In my opinion). 

Last seasons best team Perth had Castro who had 200 La Liga appearances before joining the Glory, Keogh who scored a lot of goals in the Championship and played some EPL football, Juande had a career jumping around from Serie B to the second flight in Spain. 

I will be at the game tomorrow as I live in Brisbane, anticipating a Roar win. I still think Fowler should be given time, he has an idea, a philosophy, recruitment is his undoing so far. 

Where was DWH last week? 

it is all sorted ...Fowler has demanded they start quickly...apparently he neglected to do this until now ...I knew it would be something simple.

:laugh:
It would be funny if that's all it takes to turn around the slow starts - a word from god

To be fair, there’s not a lot a coach can do - unless he’s been ordering the slow starts it’s down to the players. I get your frustration but it is down to the players. 

There is a plan there, and (as I said at the beginning of the season) he is 2-3 players short of a really good side at the moment. 

Until he can make those signings he’s going to have to make do with what he’s got and bring in a couple of kids including DWH. 

Your numbers are right but in the wrong direction.

He has 2 - 3 players that may be worth keeping.

And yet, one more goal in each game from any of our players and we are gods.

Should we have that goal based on the play from the players we have seen - yes we should.

Nothing wrong with most of the team for this competition other than that they have not delivered yet.

Fowler on the roof of the Cistene Chapel, reaching out to touch Alfred with his celestial finger. 

*Aldred 

I’d be keeping:

Crocombe (but go back to Young now)
aldred
O’Neill
Courtney-Perkins
O’Shay
DWH
Holloway
Mauk
ROD 
inman
Jingham
Pepper
Powell

The worst thing about this game is we must win it and everybody thinks we will.Consecutive losses to the bottom teams would be an utter disaster.
I fear CCM will be the more relaxed team after a last start win and will be determined to beat the losing hoodoo.
If they cant beat this Brisbane team now,when will they?

Absolutely. Makes it a bit like a cup tie doesn’t it. 

And ti be fair, not only must they win they must put in a significantly improved performance 

Do you guys reckon Powell and JCP will start? 

Considering they're both ostensibly left backs, probably not. I know JCP played CB for the u17s, but I'm not sure Fowler would want two kids starting next to each other.

Agree.

I pointed this out in pre-season but according to some on here, that makes me a troll.

I stopped coming on here because if you disagree with certain people they take it personally and get overly salty and bitter. Real shame, tbh.

Wait for it ..... 

Can’t get too excited tbh, if you have the better of the first half like that you really should go in 2 up at half time. But it was our best performance of the league season. 

The formation was much better and suited them although I would prefer DWH playing down the middle as he did with Taggart last year. 

Youngs probably secures his spot for next week though, I like Crocombe but I don’t think he would have kept a clean sheet today. 

Mariners look okay tbh, missing a striker as elbows looked one dimensional today and playing him was a gamble that didn’t pay off. This season should be Simon’s swan song, at least from Australian shores. 

Still in NZ. Didn't have access. 

Can someone spare s moment to tell me who played whet and how they went. 

God CCM are awful. Simon starting is an absolute indictment of the club.

What's on earth happened to Oar? He's completely ineffectual. 

CCM for the spoon again. What a waste of TV money the club is. 

https://www.ftbl.com.au/news/roar-ease-past-mariners-in-a-league-win-534788

probably should have finished 5-2 

Cheers mate. The report sounds positive.  So RF chose to go 433 ? 
Sounds like it worked ok. Was hoping he'd at least try some form of 4 at the back. 
Oh well hopefully up from here. 

Hard to say to be honest. Back four for sure. Think he was playing a 4-2-3-1 to be honest. Roar dominant in the first half but never looked confident of scoring but once ROD got one on the hour we looked much better. 

Roar look better with a bit more pace on the wings.But their  transition from defence is still too slow a lot of the time .
Roar need DWH to play.He adds so much energy.
Inman still has question marks over him.Unfortunately we dont have any other options on the left with any pace.

At the game it looked like a 4-1-4-1, certainly was this when defending, and probably when attacking too. O’Neill was playing as the single 6, with Mauk and O’Shea ahead of him and DWH and Inman out wide. ROD the lone man up front.

Got to be honest and say I’m still struggling picking players out but one of the derivatives of 3-5-2 is 4-1-4–1 so that would make sense. 

CCM were pretty poor so a bit hard to be too confident about this, but I thought Aldred and Gillesphey looked better from a defensive point of view playing as a central pair rather than having Aldred in the middle and Gillesphey out wider. It seemed like they were less likely to get caught out by pace, in that they provided a bit of cover for each other.

Got to say I was very surprised how good the Suncorp pitch looked today, given the U2 concert only a couple of weeks ago. Normally after big concerts the pitch is a disaster for the next month or two.