Success from style the only way for Brisbane

Results vs. Style. It's the ultimate chicken and egg debate amongst football fans.

Credit: Brisbane Roar

It would be a heavyweight bout, sure, if there was one to be fought. But much like what was seen at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre last Friday, there is little sense to it. The most exasperating part of this debate is not that you may disagree with one side, it's that the two are not mutually exclusive.

Ange Postecoglou's Brisbane Roar won two championships, a premiership and went 36 matches unbeaten, all the while playing what many deemed as a landscape-changing quality of football.

So why has the question been raised by Roar fans on forums, social media and in the stands? Because results are poor. Does that mean the football must become worse to make more of an impression in the wins column?

While the side's play has been far from its incisive, collective, structured best this season and under Mike Mulvey, the will to emulate these club principles, set during Postecoglou's reign, has been intermittently evident, as it was again on Sunday.

Smarts set Roar on the way to a winning result, as Steven Lustica's positioning exploited slack covering for the out-of-position Tony Lochhead.

It wasn't ugly, either - a fullback overlapping for a penalty spot cut-back rarely is - but it was successful. So too was the method for the match's sealer: causing a turnover in the opposition's half. Familiar, certainly. Part of a plan.

Some of the attacking moves remained as scrappy as the Suncorp Stadium pitch, yet they were never crude. Sometimes they were tentative, such as when Ben Halloran and Lustica approached Glen Moss' goal in either half respectively, and sometimes they were ruined by haste. Ultimately, though, Brisbane's performance was at least an imitation of their most admired trademarks, if not a true reflection.

'Success Is Not Final; Failure Is Not Fatal; But Without Vision, We Will Perish', read a pre-game banner from the home end.

Brisbane's prevailing vision, one imagined by Postecoglou but which projects beyond his direct involvement, is for long-term, successful style. He acknowledged that to compete beyond a half, a match, a season, usage of the football was paramount - and it must remain this way for the club to maintain its image. Winning 'ugly' was not worth consideration as it would not last, if it even worked in the beginning.

While next weekend's trip to Newcastle might decide the club's finals chances, it won't settle their future.

All Brisbane Roar's supporters can ask of Mulvey, or any coach, is that their wishes are attempted to be implemented. He now has a terrific opportunity in which to prove a vision of style is not one without substance. It's been done in the past.