Wollongong Wolves 2-0 Sydney Olympic

The win last week against Hakoah, was merely a momentary blip of hope, on the disaster that has been Sydney Olympic’s 2019 season. The club has not handled the pressure of having to defend a title and everything else is starting to come apart at the seams, even the respect for the supporters. I will get to that later.

In the first-half against Wollongong, we more than held our own and had a couple of really good opportunities to take the lead but once again, as has been the case for us all season, we failed to fire where it matters, in the front third. The opposition for all their huff and puff and reputation, only had 1 good chance in the first-half. So at half-time, we went in with the score at 0-0 and had hopes we could do something special in the second-half.

The second-half though, started in the worst possible fashion, as we copped a cheap soft goal once again almost straight from the kick-off, when there was no danger at all for us defensively. We once again panicked and we were punished.

We picked ourselves up and started to play OK, we once again had chances but it was not to be as at the other end, we conceded another cheap goal near the end of the match to succumb to yet another loss. We have only won once in nearly 2 months now. Shocking stuff.

With all the lauding about the Wollongong Wolves this season and the usual clownery of clueless people coming out of the woodwork to proclaim they “should be in the a-league”, after 1 good season in 10 years. The fact is they are very average, they won’t win the Grand Final and are very likely to pull a Blacktown Spartans from a few years ago. Overrated, Big Time.

For Sydney Olympic, we gave away more cheap goals on Sunday and in all honesty, we should never have lost that game. But a certain softness has creeped into this team, which was nowhere to be seen last season, this team is mentally soft.

The less said about what happened at full-time the better. All parties let their emotions get the better of them, but let it be known to those on the board, the coaching staff and those on the playing field, this season has not been good enough, wake up to yourselves and respect the fans who spend their time and hard earned money to drive to places like Wollongong in the rain, to support the team.

Respect the supporters. Telling them to “fuck off”, “do you know who I am” and “I will see you outside”, will only get you what you are after, and that’s a flogging.

The season is as good as over now, this is not about me being a pessimist or whatever, this is a fact. If the club and board had any football nous or smarts, they would be making hard decisions now, getting a jump on the rest of the competition who are still fighting hard this season and start planning for 2020.

Settle on who you want as coach now, leave sentiment out of that decision as it is a big one to make and get all your recruitment done nice and early and dump the players, who have proven to be a) not good enough, b) not playing for the shirt and c) have their best years behind them.

This season has been a total write-off and as disgraceful of an attempt at a defence of a title, as I have seen anywhere in any sport for some time.

I’m not sure what bringing in Riley Woodcock with 5 games to go was meant to achieve either, leave it a bit later why don’t you.

In the Club Championship, the 18s lost 1-0, and in the 20s they drew 1-1.

Our next match is against the Rockdale Kleftes, Sunday June 30 at Belmore Sports Ground. Here’s the players chance to show some balls and do something good for the fans this season. Kick-Off is at 4pm.