Soccer: Adshead reads the riot act

A-League
NZ Knights 1 Sydney 3

The A-League circus rolled into town on Friday night, complete with a big crowd, American-style high school cheerleaders, lancers on horses and a World Cup winner. But the ringmaster went home an angry man.

The New Zealand Knights played their first A-League game on home soil and coach John Adshead was visibly seething at his side for gift-wrapping Sydney FC three goals after playing well for long periods.

Adshead has been angry with his side before, most notably after their 5-0 defeat at North Harbour Stadium in the Pre-Season Cup, but this time he was bloody angry.

"We seem to have this habit of self-destructing and we've got to get out of it," he spat. "We didn't deserve that [result] tonight, not on that performance because we took a major step up tonight from what we did against Queensland last week."

The Knights have now lost their opening two matches of the new Australian league but there was enough on Friday night to suggest they will be competitive against the slick Australian sides. After being completely outplayed in the opening 25 minutes of the match and falling behind to a Mark Rudan goal, they then took the initiative and should have equalised through any number of chances that fell to Sean Devine, Zenon Caravella and Joshua Rose.

The boys from Bloc 5, the band of loyal supporters who sung their way through even the worst Kingz days, were back in their West Ham and Chelsea shirts and could sense the new incarnation was on the verge of something against the league's glamour side, albeit one without Dwight Yorke who was on international duty.

Up went the Millwall chants ('no one likes us, we don't care'), one in honour of Wynton Rufer (how the Knights would have loved a Rufer at the peak of his powers in their side) and others for the likes of Danny Hay and Danny Milosevic. All they need now are results to shout about.

The Knights looked their best when they harried the opposition and foraged their way down the flanks - rather than attempt the route-one balls they often tried. It was clearly a step up in quality from the last days of the failed Kingz and the majority of the Knights players looked handy in patches.

The large crowd of nearly 10,000 lifted palpably when Rose volleyed the Knights level in the 69th minute and some of them even dared to join Bloc 5 in their singing and chanting. Unfortunately, it didn't last long and Sydney pounced on two errors to score through Matthew Bingley and former Kingz midfielder Robbie Middleby to close out the match.

"I've been saying all along we haven't earned the right to be pulling people through the gate," said Adshead. "We have to earn respect and get results. I hope tonight we gave people a performance.

"We showed them tonight that we're not going to be the fodder for this league for much longer. We created our own problems tonight but they can see how this team is going to play and it will get better. If they give us the time to put it all together then they will see a very competitive side."

Sydney skipper Mark Rudan agreed that the Knights will be a thorn in the side for the rest of the league, especially at home.

"I don't think many teams will come here and take points. They are a hard side to beat at home and they are only going to get better."

- HERALD ON SUNDAY