FOLLOWING the nil-all draw between Queensland Roar and Sydney FC in Maroochydore, both coaches have declared themselves pleased with the performance of their respective teams.

Even though Roar failed to find the net, Frank Farina was buoyed by elements of the performance.

“In general play I thought we did well and for the first game, I’m pretty pleased. Not disappointed at all.

“You could see Sydney have only just started and we’re most probably a bit further down the track than they are at the moment. But yeah, in patches I thought we played quite well and there was some good stuff out there.

“We didn’t have a bad player on the park I don’t think; everyone that participated did really well, so that’s pleasing,” said Farina.

Deprived of new Brazilian midfielder Marcinho, the Roar boss said it presented an opportunity for one or two youngsters to step in and shine.

“Leaving Marcinho out was more precautionary than anything; he’s just tweaked his groin a little bit. But he’ll be fine, he could be right for next week, we don’t know yet.

“But it gave the chance to young Mitch Nichols who’s only 18 and he did well. Good experience for him and that’s what we need, we need that depth because that can happen during the season and you can lose a player a day or two before the game.

“So the young boys, both Mitch who started and Tahj who came on, I thought they did well and it helps when you’re playing in front of a player like Danny who’s going to organize you and tell you what to do and bark at you all day. That’s good; it’s the learning process for these kids.

Sydney FC counterpart Branko Culina was also happy with the efforts of his troops, who themselves were short of key players like Carney, Milligan and Brosque.

“That was probably our ninth training session since we’ve been back, so considering all that, yes I’m pleased. But good teams learn to graft a result even when they’re not playing well or are ready and that was the situation with us tonight,” Culina said.

He added: “But I think both teams will benefit from the hit-out tonight; Queensland looked very sharp and they’ve obviously been training for quite a while and they looked a bit more advanced at this stage than what we are.

“But it was good from our point of view to see that we were able to adjust and play a different type of game than what we played in the Asian Champions League due to the circumstances. We had a five week lay off, and to come back and play and backup so soon and early in our preparation was quite pleasing.”