Roar leave Adelaide red-faced

Brisbane Roar schooled a deflated Adelaide United outfit in a 7-1 shellacking in front of a jubilant Suncorp crowd.

Brisbane delivered the most exciting match of the Hyundai A-League thus far pushing aside the visitors in a dominant first half display that saw them take a 5-1 lead at halftime.

In the first moments of the match Adelaide looked content sitting back within their own half, letting Brisbane move it around with ease. As a result much of the early action was happening at Adelaide’s end.

But against the run of play in an unlikely sequence of events, Dario Vidosic bagged the first goal of the evening. Though Vidosic appeared offside play continued as the former Queensland Roar striker wrong-footed Matt Smith to place it in the left corner of the net and become the first player to get one past Theoklitos this season.

Vidosic was the only Adelaide player that looked threatening, getting in the face of the Brisbane defence at every chance.

They might have been a goal down, but Brisbane were not down and out. Instead they lifted – big time.

They organised their attack and were duly rewarded through Henrique in the 21st minute who converted from the penalty spot after Mitch Nichols was brought down in the box by United captain Jonathan McKain, who earnt a yellow card for his effort.

From there it was all about the Berisha Show, as the Albanian international scored three magnificent goals in six minutes.

The shell-shocked Reds were not playing badly, they were just completely outclassed and unable to keep up with Brisbane’s frantic pace.

Matters only got worse for Adelaide when another clumsy challenge by a defender gave Henrique yet another spot kick. Like de ja vu the Brazilian made no mistake to give Brisbane a four goal lead after just 34 minutes of play.

After the halftime break the Roar could afford to take their foot off the pedal a bit, but they were still searching for more goals to delight the 11,762 devoted fans at the game.

Starting off the bench Issey Nakajima-Farran had plenty to play for in an effort to regain his spot in the starting line-up. And he rose to the occasion accordingly.

Off a pass from the Canadian in the 69th minute Besart Berisha added to his three goals, wrestling McKain on the ball to get a strike away. Adelaide's Eugene Galekovic managed to get a hand on the ball which slowed it down, but the 'keeper could only watch as the ball trickled into the net.

Minutes later Nakajima-Farran was in the thick of it again to score his first goal in the Hyundai A-League competition, running onto a deft Mitch Nichols pass across the face of goal.

It’s a decisive win that is sure to send fear into the hearts and minds of those that await the Roar in upcoming rounds.

Melbourne Victory, look out. Brisbane are coming.

Adelaide United:

GALEKOVIC, Eugene. MCKAIN, Jon. MULLEN, Daniel. CASSIO. CARAVELLA, Zenon. LEVCHENKO, Evgeniy. VAN DIJK, Sergio. VIDEOSIC, Dario. DILEVSKI, Spase. SUSAK, Milan. SLORY, Andwele.

Subs:

MALIK, Osama. RAMSAY, Iain. BIRIGHITTI, Mark. USUCAR, Francisco.

Brisbane Roar:

THEOKLITOS, Michael. SMITH, Matt. JURMAN, Matthew. STEFANUTTO, Shane. FRANJIC, Ivan. HENRIQUE. PAARTALU, Eric. NICHOLS, Mitch. BROICH, Thomas. BERISHA, Besart. MURDOCCA, Massimo.

Subs:

NAKAJIMA-FARRAN, Issey. ADNAN, Sayed Mohamed. DANNING, Kofi. ACTON, Matthew.

PLAYER OF THE MATCH

3 POINTS – Besart Berisha

2 POINTS – Mitch Nichols

1 POINT – Henrique