Good Morning, Brisbane

Can't wait myself, had to work today but looking forward to walking to the ground very soon to watch my beloved Everton...

Many ex-pats here, we had well over 100 supporters in the Pig n Whistle for the FA Cup Final the other year, I've made many friends through the excellent supporters club here in Australia and expecting a big following tonight, Caxton Street will be alive before and after the game.

I was at the Sydney game last week and we had around 8,000 supporters there, probably more.

COYBs.

Whilst admittedly we haven't been good, this ref is basically allowing them to bully and throw us off the ball without any consequence.

Wait till you see Rodwell's goal...

Goals..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph344vjlJSU

Great strike from Jack.

Any more info from anyone? Did Coleman do well again? Bily play any better?

Loving Rodders' pre-season form but where does he play with Arteta and Fella presumably first choice central mids....?

Possibly, Sam, but a five-man midfield doesn?t need to be a line of four, with the fifth man, typically Cahill, playing ahead of them.

Many of the more effective teams in the World Cup deployed their midfield in a W-formation, with two defensive midfielders (the two lower points of the W) and three more creative players (the upper points). Although the creative players had license to go wide, they certainly weren?t wingers and overlapping fullbacks provided much of the width in attack.

If Coleman is ready for the first team, Everton could easily adapt to that way of playing with, for example, Fellaini and Rodwell screening the defence and setting up counters whilst the likes of Bily, Arteta and Pienaar fill the more advanced positions.

If nothing else, it would certainly solve our problem of not actually having any genuine wide-men.

It turned out to be a really good night at the Suncorp Stadium, with the team coming out to the Z-Cars theme, just made your heart swell. The Everton end was packed but there was good local support too.

The line-up seemed a little odd but it was pleasing to see Coleman at right back and he acquited himself well. It was very much Brisbane's Cup Final and they were up for it. The first half was pretty low key though, Saha looked sharp and some nice touches from Beckford, Bily just seemed out of sorts, as if he is not happy playing in his current position, it wasn't as if he was playing badly, just not tuned in.

The second half was much better and both sides raised it up a gear and it was a pretty open game as they spurned a couple of good chances. The first goal was just class, A look up, a chip and Jack made it look so easy. The blue end stood to a man and roared, Brisbane came back and gave as good as they got too, deserving their goal which was well worked and very nearly getting a second soon after but in the end they paid the price of falling asleep at the back post and the game was over.

Osman played well, and Big VIc caused all sorts of trouble with his direct running, if only he could finish! Baines got caught out a couple of times, Distin looked solid as did Jags, Beckford got clattered from behind three times without much protection and in the end I think he was glad to be sub'd.

So all-in-all, a great evening and good PR too. The only poor thing was the merchandising outside the ground, old stock, no new shirts, and pretty pathetic really, a mobile shed with a total of a dozen lines of mostly old stock to sell. Was this an official merchandising site? Pretty embarrising really.

But so many people in Everton shirts was brilliant, from all over Australia with supporters below me traveling from Perth with a great big banner, to those from the UK too. For one night only, a little bit of home. Thanks guys.

Yeah Coleman did well. Looked assured and tried some decent runs. Whole defense looked very solid so was surprise to concede one. Not many decent crosses coming in tho. I think 20k is a pretty good crowd for Brisbane, especially with no Cahill as a drawcard.
Great turnout from the Blues fans too!

As a game for the neutrals it was poor but you could see the class of the players in blue.

Taken in the context of an away cup game to a 'lower; team we seemed to be just doing enough and no more to get by.

We did seem to br a bit hard done to by the Reff, who maybe had bought in to the world cup anti hype and was not going to let these big league prima donna's dive and fake in his game, no sir. The result was that Brisbane got a very large sclice of the play on it's a mans game cake.

Steady Eddie's: Turner in goal Coleman, Distan, Neville, Beckford and Saha who dropped further and further back so was it 442 or 451 more like bits of both, and not the best bits neither.

Totally anonymous: Bily and Osman.

Must do betters: Baines, tho' hindered ala England by having Lord Lucan to help him on the left.

Special mentions: for the goals, Jack and Magaye.

The Joseph Yobo medal for brain expolsion....Phil Jagelka..

The Subs:all looked keen when they came on and if the stars alighn I would like to see Beckford and McGyver given a run as a smash and grab duo( youth and pace Loius you can't do without it )

Suncorp Stadium; I don't know what the footprint actually is but, lose the orange and red paint and slightly more leg room on the seats we could do worse than a 50000 version.

I have been in there when it was full (65000) and the service was just as efficient, 4 beers at a time per person ( put your little tray of beer under the seat and bobs you uncle ) and all the chips pizzas etc you can eat.

Inside and out before and after there was no noticable police or security pressence and no trouble.

Due to the antics over the years of the few, we seem to have painted ourselves into a corner of over reaction and restrictions.

It seems counter productive that to keep us' safer ' we lose more and more freedom ( of action and choice ) more and more camaras etc but the crime, wrong doing and wrong doeers increases.( sorry about the mini rant )

It has been interesting to compare Brisbane and Sydney with the Melbourne game I attended. Shame ours had to be mid-week down here, rather than a Saturday.

I was overall very disappointed with the game against Melbourne Heart. Just how DO you start a team from scratch? There was no 'home' support to speak of, for us to banter with. I'm sure this was done to raise the profile of the A League's newest side but if we had at least played against Melbourne Victory there would have been another 15,000 on the gate and the atmosphere would have been a bit less 'funereal'.

Sobering thought here at Etihad, which I think holds 55,000, that should we experience a downturn in fortunes, that is what we would look like with 19,700 rattling around inside a 50,000 seater stadium in Kirkby. (I've been at Goodison to see Crystal Palace thumped 4-0 with a lower attendance than that.)

Good to hear Coleman had a good game again. In Melbourne I thought that he was our stand-out player on the pitch, with the Jags (nick off you hypocrite, Arsene, or we might make an offer for Fabregas) his usual steady self and Ian Turner making a couple of top-notch saves. After Beckford's first blistering minute on the pitch which had me out of my seat, everything else fell a little flat and with 7 subs it became very disjointed towards the end. I do hope I'm wrong about Beckford but he seemed to whinge and moan with alarming regularity. Also quite bizarre to see Tim Cahill in a very defensive role at the back. I couldn't see how Jack could be described as "world class" in one report as it was very difficult to guage the opposition.

Not sure how much you can read into pre-season friendlies and in all my years of following Everton I was amazed to discover that Wednesday night was my first ever. Not sure I would be trampling over anyone to get to another.

I appreciate that it was my decision to exile myself 12,000 miles from Goodison but this sort of match then becomes my 'all season' rather than just a precursor to the real thing and it would have been nice to see Louis at least break into a jog occasionally. The strangest moment was when Lukas came on and promptly ran straight off the pitch with the ball, not realising he had crossed the side line (part of the problem of trying to play football on an Aussie Rules oval where the pitch looks like a Toy Town version parked at least 30 yards away from the nearest fans).

One last comment: because of my spreading the word about the mighty Everton in my Primary school, there were at least 15 people who were there, associated with the school. Instead of standing and applauding meekly from the half way line, it would have been nice to see the players wander over and sign a few autographs for all the kids hanging over the railings. That sort of thing does wonders for generating good feeling.

Anyway, streaming out of the ground surrounded by blue shirts and hearing them sing almost made it all worthwhile. If I shut my eyes, it was almost like leaving the Old Lady after a 2-0 win and wandering back to the car parked on Walton Rd to listen to 'Sports Report' at 5pm. I can hear James Alexander Gordon now...!

Aiden - I did!!
Technology is NOT always our friend.
When I checked to see if it had come up I was horrified to see that. I'm a teacher - I DO know how to use the things.
Stupid computer.

That's a relief. At least I don't have to grovel now.

I've fixed it now, Andy, and it's showing all your paragraphs. For some reason, the occasional comment comes in like this, where Lyndon's slick line-break inserter (when it sees an Enter/Return symbol) doesn't do the business. Perhaps you could let us know what internet browser you were using, Andy, on what operating system and what computer? Thanks!

I have been working away now for two years with the thinking I have new boy in my life... no season tickect working abroad... I never thought I would miss it, my last game was the FA Cup Final.

I have never missed anything so much in my life! I LOVE EVERTON... the supporters, the feeling of the night games, the feeling of walking up to the old lady... there is NOTHING like it, the saying is so true "YOU ARE BORN AN EVERTONIAN" I'm coming home with my son!

COYB

Just on the Melbourne game. The established A-League team (Melbourne Victory) had a friendly with Boca Juniors a couple of days after the Everton game. They got 13,000 at the game. So, I'm pretty happy with the crowd for the Everton games at all venues.

Melbourne hosted 2 games in 3 days which is a big ask in the middle of AFL season. A lot of the crowd at the Everton game were Melbourne Victory supporters too... I think ticket prices were the contributing factor for the poor crowds at both games but the Boca game on Friday copped it harder.

And, let's face it ? the English league is better than the Argy league!

Thanks for doing that, Michael.

I'm using Firefox as a browser. Some of the problem may have come from the fact that I got a bit carried away in responding to Christine's thoughts and ended up writing what I thought was way too much as a comment. I highlighted what I had written and tried to copy it to post as a separate article for the mail bag. This crashed my computer for some reason but when I rebooted it was all still there and the paragraphs were in place when I hit the submit button.
Anyway ? enough of the grammar. You did a good job sorting through my response!

Christine, I flew in from the UK for the 3 games and I can see now why the Aussies are so proud of their country as it's fantastic. Brisbane is very very nice.

Did you know that you have Will Cuff's great grandson on your door step? All the best.