Roar striker Jamie Maclaren has praised marquee man Thomas Broich for one of the assists of the season that created Brisbane’s first goal in their 3-1 demolition of Sydney FC on Saturday night.
“I think he’s probably the only player in the team who could do that ball. It was freakish,” Maclaren said in talking through the eighth-minute goal created when Broich (below, left) defied torrential rain to skilfully lob three Sky Blues defenders and put his pass at Maclaren’s feet just four metres from goal.
“I knew what he was doing, he knew what I was doing, it just happened in a split second and thankfully we got a goal from it.
“I know Thomas has got the ability to do that. I just make those runs and I know he will find me. It was a freak ball and a great assist.”
Maclaren still had work to do when his initial shot hit the upright and rebounded back but again he showed his class as one of the country’s most improved strikers this season by coolly making no mistake with his second effort.
“As a striker you’ve got to follow it up,” Maclaren said.
“I wanted to go between his (Sydney FC goalkeeper Vedran Janjetovic) legs but he shut it down and it hit the post and came back to me. The job as a striker is to feed off everything.”
Maclaren’s second goal in the 76th minute came thanks so a terrific assist from Henrique ( below ), who powered onto a perfectly-weight through-ball from Dimitri Petratos.
“Ricky did superb, dragged in the defender and used his sharp pace to get away from him and I just had to stay onside and it was a tap in.
“It was a great team effort and it was great to see Matty (McKay) on the score sheet as well (with a 67th minute far-post header off a pin-point cross from Petratos).”
Maclaren now has nine goals for the season (despite missing five games while on Olyroos duty). It is the same as he scored in all of last season.
“I want to go into double figures, I don’t really have a target (for the whole season), hopefully I can get five or six more if not more hopefully.”
Roar Head Coach John Aloisi said the 3-1 away win was exactly the response he wanted from his squad after consecutive defeats.
“All I wanted from them was to show that desire in the box on both ends – defending and also attacking,” Aloisi said.
“We did that, we created a number of opportunities, we got into good areas. We scored three goals but could have scored more.”
Aloisi predicted there were more goals to come for the Roar, including this Saturday, 6 February when they host the revitalised Luis Garcia-inspired Central Coast Mariners at Suncorp Stadium (4.15pm kick off).
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