We don't have a better option.

3:30am syd/melb

Qatar out ffs

The point I'm making, is that that unbeknown to me until this morning, is there is an entire hypothetical team currently playing more regular football in the HAL, of the correct age, who were not originally selected by Vidmar for this tournament. I'm gobsmacked. :?

It seems that an incumbent team has been playing a lot of rep football for Australia from under 17s, under 20s and under 23s, without selectors keeping a close eye on changing club scenarios. The fact that Ryan Edwards has ostensibly played more games for these national underage teams than his ever changing club scenario exemplifies my point.

Galloway, Donachie, Galifuoco, Duncan ( who does he play for?), Brillante, Antonis, Ryan Edwards, Pain represented Australia with barely any recent senior pro football between them against the UAE.

From previous performances, Donachie, Brillante, Antonis and Pain have been good players in senior football at some period during the least 2 years, but not recently. To have so many players playing as a nucleus of a team is folly.

Geria, O'Neill, Deng and Borrello, all overlooked for the first game really lifted the team against Vietnam. Three of them are regular HAL players.

At a much, much lower level in the FFA rep system, I've coached rep football. The teams I've been involved in selecting have been totally based on merit. In just 6 months, some players stagnate, whilst others overtake them.

Empirically, some players I've selected , who only just made the cut, are playing senior NPL football just a few years later, whilst others, considered stars 3 years ago, are way down the pecking order.

When I've selected rep teams recent form has been paramount.

Yeh i value my sleep more

I've seen a lot of a player like O'Neill, who illustrates my point by his performance in the Vietnam game. Reads the game well, keeps good position, wins many hard balls, has fast handling speed with good body position on both sides of the body, and opens effective passing lanes.

I've seen McGing play for CCM a lot, but have never really kept a close eye on him.

Fox pundits have lauded Elsey.

Retre and Melling's games I know well as I 've observed City closely. Frankly, I'm astonished they're not there with Vidmar ATM. Both are good ball winners, and have decent distribution.

In Retre's case, he has speed over the turf.

Melling is more consistent. Even last year he outmuscled physically strong senior players in the HAL. I think he would have an impact similar to O'Neill. In fact I don't think many opponents would want to go to near him with the ball at their feet or in 50/50 tackles.

Blackwood is a player a bit like Juric, a target player with strength, pace and skill. Apparently, Guus Hiddink and Arnold think he has incredible potential. Not enough to impress Vidmar though.](*,)

I was hoping Biscuitman could provide the name of that wonderful 17 year old ball player for Glory. He is dark skinned and has black hair.

Kenny Lowe is an idiot if he couldn't see in Brandon O'Neill what Arnie has.:x





Edited by Decentric: 19/1/2016 06:10:04 PM

He is playing regular senior pro football, which is more than most of the team Viddy put out against the UAE.

You may have noticed, but the best players in Viddy's team have been playing regular pro football. The ones who haven't have often struggled comparatively.

He's name is Jamal Reiners, a former Joey and FFA COE player.

Edited by Barca4life: 19/1/2016 04:48:01 PM

Edited by Barca4life: 19/1/2016 04:48:18 PM

Thanks, Barca.

Reimers is the player who was a slippery opponent over a whole game for Glory a few weeks ago for some HAL opposition. He would be more than that against the opposition the Young Socceroos face ATM.


He was very neat with the ball at his feet - running with the ball and 1v1 attacking skills.

Don't get me started. ](*,)

For a coach who prides himself in developing youth, blah, blah, blah Lowe has let some whoppers go.

O'Neill is the biggest mistake he could ever make. Got no game time here because of Griffiths last season and then allowed to leave when Glory gets gutted and sorely needed a player exactly like O'Neill who has flourished with game time (wow, really???) and now in the Olyroos.

That is just not good enough for a youth development coach like Lowe.

Then they let go of other players like Woodcock (going to Sydney), Davies (to Malaysia and now playing in their NT), Clisby (at Mel Bloo). There's almost an entire back line.

The mind boggle sometimes.

Found out in the other thread that Deng could be out due to injury, massive blow if true....

Ffs

Ironically, Australia has massive depth in this position.

They are either injured ( Chapman, Ansell, Good, Elsey, Deng ), not released, (Irvine) or Vidmar didn't select them (McGing, Ascroft, Lachlan ?).

Geria and Melling have also played CB reasonably well at HAL level.

After having another look at the Vietnam game for the second time , Ryan Edwards did quite well.

Regardless of how many games Edwards has played with his current club, Partick Thistle, he caused a lot of turnovers and got through a lot of graft work, without the higher class technical qualities of Amini and Antonis.

Gee, I think Vietman were one of the most physical and aggressive sides I've seen in Asia.

Their number 10 was brilliant. A little guy, he barged Donachie off the ball. Great technician.

Yes, he has been playing and he has been playing very averagely.

Give.that some of the players you have selected and that you couldn't name Heward-Belle and Jamal Reiners, I wonder how much HAL football you actually watch.

Davies was behind Risdon and had the choice to play for Malaysia. Woodcock was out of contract and refused an offer of another contract so you can't say he was let go. I still don't think Clisby was a great loss especially as at the time he was behind Jamieson and Woodcock at LB.

Not much by the sounds of it :(

All of this.

I'm the first to admit that O'Neill has been great this season, seeing a little of McKay/Culina in the way he plays. But at the end of the day, several coaches weren't impressed by him and picked plenty of other players over him. Hats off to Arnie for making it work.

As for all those players that we 'let go', as you can see, there really is a context to just about all of them.

About 3 and a half games per round on average.

When one gets to my age, memory lapses occur.:lol:

I'm not sure anyone else has written this, but I thought the Vietnam match was a cracking game of football to watch.

Given their improvement, Vietnam should become a much stronger outfit at senior level. Given we played them in ideal climatic conditions they will become increasingly tough opponents playing at home in Vietnam in the future.




Edited by Decentric: 20/1/2016 07:58:05 AM

Clisby has done well for City.

Another case of Kenny, ostensibly a specialist youth coach and known in FFA circles for his NTC teams playing good football, releasing yet another young player who is successful at another pro club that Lowe has seen little value in.





Edited by Decentric: 20/1/2016 09:09:23 AM

We will improve in the future also.

Don't let the gasps of the crowd fool you into thinking they were that good. The Arabs were just cheering for us to lose.

They've improved out of site relative to us and other Asian nations.

Nickk was shedding light on their flash French Clairefontaine style Academy.

Their 11 players on the pitch were probably the best players they have in the country at that age level.

You could be right regarding Vietnam.

However, we have a lot of depth with not many standouts. Because of ever changing club scenarios and differing improvement rates of players, varying from year to year, month to month, we almost have about 3 teams that could be selected arguably of similar calibre ATM.

The best team from a year ago would be different from the best team now. Two years ago it would have been different again. It will probably change in another year's time too.

So we either face South korea or Iraq (prob using over age players) if we advance.

I don't know about overage players but most of the team have senior caps and 2 players have over 30 (Salman and Tariq), Maty Ryan only has 21. Middle east teams have a lot more games with national teams at both Senior and youth levels so are very dangerous at these sort of tournaments.

Thanks for taking the time to answer Decentric. Always a interesting read

Didn't know the game is on tomorrow morning, hopefully Deng can manage to overcome his injury based on reports.