Moreton Bay v Brisbane Strikers Postponed From Brisbane Strikers ‘Black Cat’ Returns As Moreton Bay Clash Postponed Jul 10, 2013by Steve Pitman The Brisbane Strikers’ have hit a further pothole on their already difficult road to the NPL semi-finals with the news today that Saturday’s Round 17 fixture with Moreton Bay United has been postponed. Moreton Bay’s Wolter Park ground was to have hosted the fixture. However, urgent remedial work had to be done to its playing surface after the Round 15 fixture against Redlands United, played in soaking rain ten days ago, left it badly chopped up. It has not recovered in time to host Saturday’s games. The Under-18s and Under-20s games have been moved to Moreton Bay’s Brendale complex, kicking off at 4.00 pm and 6.00 pm respectively. But the lack of spectator facilities at that complex and its minimum-sized pitch made it unsuitable for the senior men’s game and, when Moreton Bay were unable to source an alternative, they asked for a postponement. With the Strikers’ Round 13 fixture against Brisbane City having already been postponed due to floodlight failure at Perry Park, this weekend’s postponement of the Moreton Bay fixture makes their run-in to the end of the season fraught with unwanted difficulties. The most likely options for rescheduling the fixture are midweek sometime in August. With an alternative date for the Brisbane City fixture still to be confirmed (but likely to be the pre-scheduled ‘catch up’ weekend of 24 and 25 August), the Strikers’ friendly against Brisbane Roar scheduled for Wednesday, 7 August and options for rescheduling the Moreton Bay fixture also revolving around a midweek August date, the Strikers now face a log-jam of fixtures next month. Despite winning their last two fixtures , the Strikers remain in fifth place on the league table, needing to overhaul the likes of Sunshine Coast Fire and Redlands in the race for the top four. With this in mind, the further interruption to their playing schedule has come as an irritation that coach David Large admits he and his players could do without. “I’m certainly not happy with what’s happening”, Large said tonight. “I’m disappointed we’re not playing and I’d certainly like to hope that they (Moreton Bay) are just as disappointed. I’m sure Terry Kirkham wouldn’t be happy about it either, so it’s probably two disappointed coaches in one go. “But there’s not much we can do about it. We’re just going to have to deal with it and hope that we can utilize the squad to the best effect and get everyone to realize that this is going to be about managing a squad, not managing eleven players”. The potential for the interruption to stall the momentum built up over the last fortnight with 4-0 and 8-1 wins over FNQFC Heat and CQFC Energy also concerns Large. “It’s that black cat again – it keeps coming around, doesn’t it?”, Large said. “I’m not really sure how we’ll deal with this weekend at this point in time. (Assistant coach) Graham Harvey is in Mackay and gets back just before training tomorrow, and I probably need to talk to him and see how we manage the situation as best as we can and just go from there. Large said that he had not had a chance to speak to his players about the latest postponement and acknowledged it was far from ideal that they were likely to find out about it first from their club’s website. However, in the interest of providing supporters as soon as possible with the information they need to reorganize their weekends, the Brisbane Strikers football club believes it necessary to issue advice of the postponement tonight. Further information on the rescheduled fixtures will be provided as soon as possibl
Posted on: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 06:31:31 +0000
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