Victory in Melbourne 

Well its the 1st of December, which means the end of Movember and the end of my moustache for this year. Thanks to all those that donated to this great cause. If you haven’ donated its not too late, just visit my mospace page.

It also looks like its the end of Michael Thwaite’s short stint at Melbourne Victory according to theworldgame.com.au, who are reporting that he will be on his way to Gold Coast United next season. Its disappointing news to say the least, considering the hard work by Gary Cole and co. to get him here in the first place. It also makes our defensive stocks very thin on the ground, with rumours abounding that Sebastian Ryall will look to head back to his home state of NSW and what you would think would be the imminent retirement of Kevin Muscat.

As for the performance on the weekend, there is not much I can say because yours truly forgot to check the actual time on the A-League website and just assumed it was on at 7:30pm Melbourne time. A disappointing result and our first ever lost to a New Zealand side. It was a number of strange results for the weekend but by all accounts we didn’t really deserve anything more than a loss.

A few weeks ago I asked the question “So Mr Vargas, who will you be supporting?” when Melbourne Victory took on Green Gully in a practice match. Well I needn’t have bothered as neither Rodrigo or Andy Vargas played in the match held last night, which Green Gully won convincingly 3-1 at an extremely cold and wet underfoot Green Gully Reserve.

Overall a pretty average performance from Melbourne last night against a team that was fielding most of its reserves and Under 21s players. Good debut from new signing Michael Thwaite, who looked very comfortable on the ball, but would have liked to see him play more in the centre of defence and not at right back. Other new signing, Ney Fabiano look good in patches with some neat touches but looked sadly short of match fitness.

The crowd also got to see some players that could quite possibly make up our youth team with Fabio Dilizia looking like a good prospect apart from giving away a penalty and picking up a rather harsh red card for his efforts. It wasn’t the only red card for the night with Berger picking up two yellows and Green Gully’s very own Muscat, Emanuel, picking up two yellows in very quick session to find himself having an early shower.

It was good to see Melbourne back in action, but I’m not sure if the frozen hands and feet were worth it at this early stage in the season. As I’ve said before I’ll give the next practice match in Epping a miss - too far away and probably even colder than it was last night.

According to the official SK Brann website, the club had agreed to terms with Melbourne Victory on a loan deal for Michael Thwaite that begins at the start of July 2008 and ends February 2009. This is a good signing for the Victory as the defensive stocks were looking a bit thin. Thwaite should provide some of that aerial cover that we were sadly missing in our Asian Champions League campaign. Now if only they would confirm those Jose Luis Lopez rumours and then I would be a happy man.