Pre Season Challenge: New Zealand Knights v Queensland Roar Match Thread

[Ray Nolan]

All discussion for the Group B Pre Season Challenge match between New Zealand Knights & Queensland Roar may be posted on this thread. It will be stickied until next Tuesday.

 

[Ray Nolan]

Oh dear, not a good start at home for the Knights, at least a decent crowd of 3,397 showed up for this first game. Hopefully they'll come back after this!

ROAR THUMPS KNIGHTS TO STAY ALIVE

Saturday 30 July 2005

Queensland Roar are still alive in the Hyundai A-League Pre-Season Cup after a thumping 5-0 win in Auckland against the New Zealand Knights.

Miron Bleiberg’s men bounced back strongly from last week’s 3-1 reversal to the Central Coast Mariners, with a more assured and dominant performance at North Harbour Stadium.

Roar went ahead as early as the 10th minute when Royce Brownlie opened the scoring. Massimo Murdocca’s through ball found Brownlie who fired home past Knights keeper Glen Moss from the edge of the box with a low drive.

Just two minutes later Roar doubled their advantage. Reece Tollenaere’s break down the right flank was spotted by Remo Buess whose pass unlocked the Knight’s defence. Tollenaere’s cross found Brownlie once again and the big striker side-footed his second of the game.

However that effectively was the end of Brownlie’s night, as soon after he limped off after a heavy tackle.

The Knights best chance of the first period fell to Noah Hickey just before the break when he latched on to a bouncing ball inside the penalty area but fired over the bar.

The match though was still up for grabs with 10 minutes remaining, but with the Knights surging forward in search of goals, the Roar stuck three daggers into the hearts of the home team.

Reece Tollenaere added the third for Roar with a neat header to put the game beyond the reach of the home side; Warren Moon met a cross at the near post and slid home the fourth and Murdocca was rewarded for his efforts when he beat his marker and completed the rout with the fifth goal.

The result leaves the Queenslanders with a chance of qualifying for the knockout phase of the competition and sets up an all important clash with Sydney FC in Cairns next Saturday.

Match Details

New Zealand Knights 0-5 Queensland Roar (Brownlie 8’/9’, Tollenaere 82’, Moon 91’, Murdocca 93’)

New Zealand Knights Line-up: Glen Moss (gk); Ronnie Bull, John Tambouras, Danny Hay, Neil Emblen, Steve Fitzsimmons, Ben Collett, Sean Devine, Noah Hickey (Jeremy Brockie 46’), Frank van Eijs, Xiaobin Zhang (Joshua Rose 77’)

Queensland Line-Up: Scott Higgins (gk); Todd Gava (Warren Moon 54’), Karl Dodd, Chad Gibson (capt), Remo Buess, Massimo Murdocca, Hyuk-Su Seo, Spase Dilevski, Reece Tollenaere, Royce Brownlie (Jonathan Richter 16’), Alex Brosque (Ben Griffin 76’)

Cautions: Hay (21’)

Referee: Peter O’Leary (NZ)

Attendance: 3397

 

[DB10]

And we're being called the bottom placed team?