The big winners from an entertaining weekend of football were Brisbane Roar and Western Sydney Wanderers, even if it was not immediately apparent.

Congratulations to coach Mel Andreatta and her Brisbane Roar team, after they topped the W-League standings following a commanding 4-1 win over Canberra United at Suncorp Stadium yesterday.

The Roar needed only a draw to finish their premiership campaign on top of the table and claim a much-deserved piece of silverware, but in the end a double from Abbey Lloyd on the back of goals from Matildas duo Hayley Raso and Emily Gielnik was more than enough to see off the visitors in front of a healthy crowd.

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And the Roar deserved their silverware after losing just twice en route to finishing top of the standings.

They’ll now have to do it all again in a finals series which also features Sydney FC, the Newcastle Jets and Melbourne City – with the Roar no doubt eager to avoid the fate of last year’s table-toppers Canberra, who were subsequently beaten in the semi-finals.

And Canberra’s presence in the W-League, not to mention the four-team (out of nine) finals system, are surely concepts worth considering for the A-League.

The Roar women certainly fared better than their male counterparts, although you can’t say Melbourne City’s 2-1 defeat of Brisbane Roar wasn’t entertaining.

Massimo Maccarone has been one of the Roar’s better performers this season, but he’ll have had nightmares about his poorly-hit penalty, which ended up costing his side at least a point.

Yet the Roar’s defenders were just as culpable – even if both Daniel Arzani and Marcin Budzinski were proving adept at unlocking the Brisbane defence.



Arzani is clearly one of the revelations of the season, yet in the introverted Budzinski, City may just have the player to fill Ross McCormack – not to mention Tim Cahill’s – now departed boots.

As for the Roar, the fact there was a minor fracas with security over the removal of a banner in the home end at least proves one thing – there are still enough fans in Brisbane who care about their club to challenge the status quo.

Although they’d already displayed a much wordier tifo, the banner that prompted security to step in was the simple “Stop the rot” line which first appeared a few weeks ago, and was presumably not on the list of pre-approved banners fans are allowed to display.

Frankly, it’s a bit ridiculous that fans have to have banners pre-approved in the first place, although the offensive banner Western Sydney Wanderers fans held aloft at the Sydney derby last year is a prime example of why it happens.

Speaking of the Wanderers, they did just enough to see off an inconsistent Central Coast Mariners 2-1 yesterday, thanks to goals from Jaush Sotirio and Oriol Riera – or a Ben Kennedy own goal, if you believe the sticklers.

Sotirio was born in Cyprus, while Riera was made in La Liga Santander, to borrow the convention from commercials we see ad nauseam even though we’re already watching the A-League.

And in a team also containing the likes of Raul Llorente, Roly Bonevacia and Marcelo Carrusca, there aren’t too many opportunities for players from Western Sydney to represent their local region.



But hopefully that will change now that Western Sydney are the new National Youth League champions, after the Wanderers downed Melbourne City 3-1 in a thriller in Saturday’s grand final.

Both City’s Denis Genreau and Western Sydney’s Lachlan Scott possess A-League experience, and it took extra-time to separate the two sides after the pair saw their early goals cancel each other out.

In the end, it was goals from Mark Tokich and John Roberts that helped see off a spirited City and hand the Wanderers their first ever NYL title.

Congratulations, then, to Brisbane Roar and Western Sydney.

Their senior men’s teams may be experiencing mixed fortunes, but they proved this weekend that’s there’s more to football than just the A-League.