Graham Arnold ... 'There was some fantastic play from both teams.' Source: News Limited
Central Coast Mariners coach Graham Arnold says the first half of Saturday night's draw with Melbourne Victory is the best football he has seen in the A-League.
And man of the match Marco Rojas revealed his bag of tricks was learnt on the indoor pitches of New Zealand as a kid.
| P | W | D | L | GD | Pts | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Adelaide | 7 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 16 |
| 2 | Central Coast | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 14 |
| 3 | Newcastle | 7 | 4 | 0 | 3 | -2 | 12 |
| 4 | Perth | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 10 |
| 5 | Western Sydney | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 10 |
| 6 | Victory | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | -4 | 10 |
| 7 | Wellington | 7 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 8 |
| 8 | Brisbane | 7 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 7 |
| 9 | Heart | 7 | 2 | 1 | 4 | -1 | 7 |
| 10 | Sydney | 7 | 2 | 0 | 5 | -9 | 6 |
After a fruitless debut season for Victory in which he failed to score, Rojas has four goals and an assist in six games this season.
He certainly contributed to a wonderful first 50 minutes of entertainment - before Patrick Zwaanswijk's 50th-minute red card, forced a Mariners reshuffle - and Arnold said he was delighted with what he saw.
"The first half was some of the best football I've seen," Arnold said.
"There was some fantastic play from both teams.
"We've changed our formation after playing a similar way for two years and I'm delighted with the way they've responded."
Playmaker Tom Rogic again pulled the strings for the visitors but Arnold said the youngster had been scheduled to play only an hour after returning from Korea on Friday, so he was sacrificed 10 minutes earlier.
Meanwhile, Rojas set the tone for Victory with an exhilarating display.
"Central Coast are a good, tight defensive unit so sometimes you have to beat your player to create two v (versus) ones," Rojas said.
"My tricks just come to me in the spur of the moment. It's something I learnt playing indoor when I was younger. I've got to start doing it every week and getting the consistency.
"The boys are playing with a lot more confidence and we're passing the ball around. We're playing some pretty good football and we've got to carry on.
"Even when we go down a goal, I think we still have strong belief that no matter what happens we'll come back."
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