I love to eat at Irish pubs whether in Australia or NZ. And I'm not Irish. 
Decent food for a decent price, friendly with a good atmosphere if rather noisy at times. 
And sometimes you be lucky to get some good music. 
NZ Irish pubs are awesome!!
damn shame to see Brisbane Irish Pub go. 
It'll be missed. 

I recon we’re good for forwards tbh. Same with CB’s if it’s a back three (we’ve got three and only need one) 

They key now is how RF will set up that middle five - will he play Dual 6’s, Dual 8’s or Dual Wing Backs? 

That will determine who he signs 

Has anyone who renewed membership yet been able to select their seats? Tried to go through but wasn't given any option to select seats. 

I imagine just from a sequencing point of view, all of the renewing members will get to decide if they want their current seats before they allow anyone else to swoop in and take them. Also they will probably want to wait at least until the FFA release the draw before they let the renewing members do that just so no one is taken by surprise.

But it would be good if the club confirmed what the plan is publicly.

Are dual 6's/8's and wing backs mutually exclusive?

Yes in a starting XI but not necessarily in a squad but the restriction on the number of players makes it difficult to cover all of them. 

@Mello
I am sure we just renew our existing seats at this point - so no seat selection options. If you wanted to move elsewhere or add/subtract members you would be best ringing them.

Once the membership renewal period is over there may be a period before open sales that members can play with seating - but it may just go open. Until then they won't have a clue which seats are available. Give them a call if you want to make changes and they will let you know how it goes.

Too easy. Yes I'll give them a call next week and see what the options are. 

When is the next practice match? In the mood to check them out this weekend if somethings on.

Today, 3PM vs Brisbane City. At Logan Metro Sports Park. 

Cheers Waz. Have an hour to get there which is plenty of time.

How’d we play today?

Same as last week. Short passes, nice interchanges, a little bit better than last week but still look rusty on some passages of play. 

But theyre not not messing around - they already look fit. 

Back from the game...

RF played what looked to be his first choice team against the 4th placed NPL team rather than the 'team of two halves' last week against  the 11th NPL team.

We looked stronger against their better organised play than we did against the more random style of Redlands - but likely because we had both the first string forward and defensive 'teams' on the pitch.

Aldridge is a great organiser at the back - always talking and driving the back line to hold their line and not get sucked into dropping back too soon. He had a few ventures into the box and showed why he is a great defender with a couple of wayward attempts.

Roar looked solid moving forward, with a continuation of the fast combination football - but notably we rarely used our centrebacks when we were building our attacks and switching - most of the time passing through the midfield instead of back through centrebacks and keeper. Maintained our forward pressing attacking play and creativity. We have quite a few players now showing composure on the ball in tight places and, at least at this level of competition.

Looking forward to seeing how we go against some of the tougher pressing teams in the ALeague but showing good signs.

Brisbane CIty were a well organised team playing some hard football at times and not short of options themselves. Again today we looked a bit vulnerable in goal mouth scrambles - yet we kept a clean sheet without much effort required by Jamie in goals. I cannot recall a single serious shot threatening Jamie's goal (but I might have missed something).

It was pleasing to hear quite a few Roar players saying 'just turn round and play on' sorts of comments when decision went against them or went uncalled. Hopefully that is part of the discipline that RF requires.

Baron Samedi Holloway showed more of his strength, skill and flair - also a bit wayward with final shots and passes, but making our midfield so much more cohesive and dangerous than we have been seeing lately.

ROD made some great runs and received an excellent back post cross, then put it back to (I think) Holloway perfectly for a headed goal.

With half an hour to go, RF made a full team change and put on the second string side. The backline came under a lot more sustained pressure and despite a number of breaks out wide managed to scramble and recover each time. Again a lot of fast, skillful passing to get out of trouble time and again and mount a decent attack, but the confidence, composure and presence were so much less than the first team all over.

Pepper and Mauk played in the second side and did their best to be everywhere and keep FR's eye on them - but Mauk may not have done his chances much good when he reacted a couple of times to late and nasty hacks - the last time earning a yellow card for shirt fronting the guy who had hacked his ankle late.

Akbari through the middle and (no idea but possibly fast, aware Ramazani)  in the backline were just a couple of the second side players drawing attention.

As a team we stepped up from last week. Holding up well under strong physical pressure, working hard for each other and successfully completing fast passes into open space - clearly working to more of a plan and on the same page.

As with last week - pre-season is no place to prove success, but we did continue to improve and show our developing class.

Thanks for the updates boys!

Great post, thanks for the detailed break down of the game. 

Who was playing wide on the right got today - an awful lot of ball went his way?

(and great to meet you today 👍 sorry I was in a bit of a rush, it was my turn to do the stream lol) 

Good to put a face to a keyboard. That's two of us who I know aren't fat bored grandmothers hunting this forum for prey :)

If we are talking first half particularly it might have been Jake McGing - dynamic, hungry and persistent and involved in a lot of play. I could be wrong - I did not have the squad list so there is still a lot of guesswork in players.

Home Alone Gillesphey was on the right in the second half too I think.

Something for future pre-seasons - maybe we can work out a way to produce a bucket load of handouts with squad names, numbers and pics and give them to people on entry, A matchday program covers that once the season starts, but would help us get a grip on our team in pre-season that much easier than having to check lists of numbers on phones.

and oops - Aldred not Aldridge...

My best guesses for who the first team was (not by position):

Young
Aldred
Reardon
Gillesphey
Neville
O'Neil
Inman
Mells
O'Shea
Holloway
O'Donovan

Happy if anyone can improve on that.

McGing started, not Mells

Thanks mate. I mentioned him in an earlier post then forgot about him.

Bahahahahahahaha 

Just some observations on Robbie Fowler.

He (and Tony Grant) is keeping a low profile - with his celebrity status I’d expected him to be more visible in media for non-football stuff and for his Liverpool days. So far it all seems to be about the players and Roar which is good - the media must be after him. 

During games he’s often standing on the edge of the technical area. Most of the time he’s not very animated (that might change as the season develops) and kinda looks like he’s out for an arvo stroll and just happened to come across a game of football 

when he does communicate with the team in game it seems very surgical and targeted at one player at a time “O’Neill, you need to be aware of what’s behind you”, “Georgie, you need to listen to the calls and act”, “Aaron, turn quicker and go forward” were all picked up on the stream yesterday as was his less than animated presence just observing. 

It looks like Fowler is taking the lead with Grant firmly in support. Under the Aloisi’s you could be forgiven for thinking Ross was in charge. 

interesting...

My view of the game yesterday was less than ideal, as it was partially blocked by the benches and the tent next to City’s bench, but I wasn’t overly impressed with what I saw. Nothing particularly bad, I just had this feeling the quality wasn’t there at the level needed for Roar to be a contender (top 4, or even top 6) this season.

Maybe I’m a bit blinded by the sight of all the Brits/Irish (both actual and Aussies who have come back from there), but it all seems very much the same across the squad, with no one like a Broich, Berisha, Corona, or even a Bautheac there.

I hope I am wrong.

My view is that both positive and negative thoughts can be held in check for now. It’s too early and Redlands and City games don’t provide any sort of benchmark. Even a win over SFC should be held in check (if it happens) as we won’t know how good we are - or bad - until mid November. 

So so far what we can say is Fowler is playing 3 at the back, 5 in the middle, a short passing game and is clearly looking to play an attractive style of football. That’s a good start imo. 

As for the individual players, we need tougher tests. 

I am am confident in Aldred who was outstanding in the SPL and I’m confident we’ll have one of the best if not the best CB in the comp come May. 

I remain intrigued by Holloway’s signing. No way should he have been signed on his Wikipedia record but watching him play, he is a beast and I can see what Fowler sees in him - but will he score or create in the HAL (yesterday his goal was a superb athletic header but he then missed one or two easier chances with his feet?) 

2 games in I’m positive but there’s a long way to go. 

My observations of the team for the first time.

They looked like a fairly tough bunch, fit for the first half but took their foot off the peddle in the second even before the changes.

Surprisingly they looked quite cohesive, playing the ball out from the back quite comfortably. City didn’t let up on them either. Their structure appeared to be 352 and looked reasonably organised. Credit to Fowler. Best player was Holloway. The number 5 looked solid and in command too. No 22 ? was quite affective on the right. Had little idea of the names without a team list. 

I can see we still lack creativity up front without the skilful players (Holloway the exception). At least we won’t be called a team of midgets this season lol.

Much improvement from this time last season but no world beaters.

22 is McGing 
5 is Aldred. 

Its weird watching your side snd they’re all strangers lol. 

Pity they didn’t have a team sheet. Good effort by the club to organise the activities, gold coin donation is cheap and the venue is quite pleasant. Is this where they train normally? I get confused with Meakin Park.