Roar were a team of oldies this season and all the worries of pundits before the start of the campaign proved a reality once things began and at least four main players were missing for pretty much every round after the opening 4 games, with the Tangerines regularly using 8-9 starters aged 32 and older.
The advanced age of the squad made Roar playing some really slow football and after opening the campaign with a six-game winless run the pressure was on. Coach Aloisi proved unsuccessful with his attempts to freshen up things with the inclusion of some younger players from time to time and if it wasn’t for the goals scored by the 38-year-old striker Maccarone before Christmas, 7 of his 9 goals came before round 13, Roar would have been without a play-off chance from very early on.
The other key figure proved to be the supporting goalkeeper Young, who had to step in between the posts for round 5 after the regular Theo suffered a season-ending injury and despite the rare clean sheets Young was one of the best goalkeepers in the A-League with his staggering 6.4 saves per game.
Things started to improve slightly for Roar around mid-January when back-to-back narrow wins over Mariners and Glory resurrected the play-off hope. Still the Tangerines had a lot to do, but finally the vast experience of their squad worked in their favour late in the season with Roar dramatically sneaking into the play-offs on the last day of the campaign after achieving four wins and a draw in the last six rounds.
However, the insecure defending and the long-term absentees of the main goalkeeper and the three preferred starters in the heart of the defence exposed Roar badly and their campaign ended in the Elimination Final where a logical 0:2 defeat was suffered against Melbourne City.
