A Luke Brattan hat trick and an injury time goal to Matthew Thurtell has given the Brisbane Roar Youth an emphatic come from behind victory over the AIS in Canberra on Saturday.
A Luke Brattan hat trick and an injury time goal to Matthew Thurtell has given the Brisbane Roar Youth an emphatic come from behind victory over the AIS in Canberra on Saturday.
After a disappointing first half by the competition front-runners, the Roar were a completely different outfit after the break dominating the AIS after going down to an early goal.
While happy with the score line Roar Head Coach John Sime felt his side did not play to the best of their ability.
“I was happy with the win but I was not impressed by the first half performance; the boys kept giving the ball away and making simple mistakes,” Sime said.
“Once we made a number of changes in the second half everything started to work better and as a result the goals started to flow.”
After a dour first half that ended goalles, the AIS managed to score an early second half goal courtesy of an Aaron Peterson.
However sparked the away side into action with Luke Brattan scoring in the 58th, 75th and 86th minute while Matthew Thurtell put the finishing touch on with a goal in the 93rd minute.
While Sime was critical of his side-s performance, he did say that he was encouraged by the effort of his players for the entirety of the match.
“The players tried very hard, their efforts were superb and they managed to maintain a high intensity for the duration of the match; I can-t question their desire,” Sime said.
“The boys need to maintain the same high level of performance consistently if they are to continue winning games in this league, we just did enough on Saturday but it has to improve.”
Sime said that he was impressed with Brattan-s hat trick, which had come after he had spoken to the young midfielder about taking his game to the next level.
“While Luke has had a bad run of injuries, he needed to work a bit harder to make the next step as a player; the goals were a good showing from him,” he said.
Brisbane now have a week to prepare for their next match against Newcastle at home, a match which Sime is hoping brings the return of 90 minute performances from his team.
“We haven-t played Newcastle this season so it will be a new challenge and as I have said all season if we put in a big performance the results will follow.”
