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Official South Melbourne Hellas thread 🔵⚪

Great game by South Melbourne, played very well, truely impressive. Oakleigh we're eh, just average, just a very average 3 goals no big deal, nothing special... South Melbourne on the other hand, wow! 😍
 
Whilst Oakleigh were ordinary you have to factor in that its not easy rocking up to a game that you know isnt a proper match. Very rarely does a team know they've won the game before its started.
 
There’s not much point trying to discuss this match given South pretty much fielded a combination of our U20s/U23s today. The fact the kids were able to keep Oakleigh scoreless until the 5th minute of injury time in the first half is testament to the quality of these kids and the effort they put in.

The positive today is that we have a bunch of kids coming through the club’s youth program that are going to play senior football. We have some talented kids - not all will make it to the senior squad, but we can confident that we have kids who can step up and measure themselves against other opponents. They will be better for the experience today. The way the fans acknowledged and applauded their efforts will ensure they hold their heads up high.

That being said - a full strength South side would have won by a couple of goals today.
 
O'Sullivan is ready now to be part of the senior squad every week. Papadimitriou and Saristavros are the next ones most likely to make it.

Anyway you blood these kids in with the main team and that shows a lot more. Its hard to judge when they're all in at once and get physically beaten by bigger more experienced bodies.

If we had Lopez, Eliopoulos, Jankovic, Pasquali and Bonada in the 11 today like we did against Gully with the kids surrounding them we would have given them a lot of trouble.
 
Skapoulas dovison osullivan papadimitriou saristavros that's 5 who have shown they're up for it granted Skapoulas and dovison were in the senior squad last season. Credit to the work our club is doing in our youth set up. Yes we'd have liked some more senior players there but at least we know these kids won't embarass the club.

Moving forward if we can still be in the 6 or around it by end of ofc i can see us winning the league. First place we know means Jack shit and if we do get to he grand final guess what it's a free home grand final. Let's go Hellas
 
Lets not get carried away with today. These kids could easily cop 7+ against Heidelberg in a few weeks, especially if Bergers score early.

The key today was that we held them out. Lets not expect 3-0 with such a te every week. Its one thing to know you're gonna lose but the potential for huge defeats is worrying, our GD being massacred is like losing an extra point.
 
Oakleigh said:
Why wasn't your full squad played? I am currently away from Melbourne so not caught up to the details.
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South Melbourne had to field an understrength playing list because all our senior players are in Fiji for OFC Pro League where they played and lost against bottom-placed PNG Hekari instead of flying back to Melbourne at the conclusion of the Bula FC game midweek so they could be fully fit and firing for today's match against Oakleigh.
 
rebelliousfeminist974 said:
South Melbourne had to field an understrength playing list because all our senior players are in Fiji for OFC Pro League where they played and lost against bottom-placed PNG Hekari instead of flying back to Melbourne at the conclusion of the Bula FC game midweek so they could be fully fit and firing for today's match against Oakleigh.
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I see. Thanks for filling me in. Well they say a wins a win but feels abit underwhelming now if it was against an under strength team.

Was it planned or a mistake on the management team?
 
KostaV92 said:
We don’t rate you as a club so the seniors decided to have a holiday
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Oh okay, well could you please rest the seniors when we play again? It's valuable having those points stack up, might even get us into that new competition if the requirements are still finishing on top.
 
Oakleigh said:
Oh okay, well could you please rest the seniors when we play again? It's valuable having those points stack up, might even get us into that new competition if the requirements are still finishing on top.
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Dont get too ahead of yourselves, champs! We will give the points to Bergers aswell just to put you back to where you belong, which is not in the championship!
 
southmelb said:
O'Sullivan is ready now to be part of the senior squad every week. Papadimitriou and Saristavros are the next ones most likely to make it.
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Agree. I feel O’Sullivan has really stepped up this season. We saw good touches by Papadimitriou last week at Preston, where he created the third goal. Saristavros has talent and we saw his great goal against Green Gully. He was battling on his own today with little support. He did admirably and no one can begrudge his effort.

These three kids will get more match time throughout the season, even post the OFC Pro League.

southmelb said:
If we had Lopez, Eliopoulos, Jankovic, Pasquali and Bonada in the 11 today like we did against Gully with the kids surrounding them we would have given them a lot of trouble.
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If we had our senior team in today, we would have won by 2 or 3 goals. If we had 4-5 of senior team in, the youth players would have felt more confident and safer. A combination of youth and senior players would have been a much better approach today.
 
SMFC1959 said:
There were rumours circulating today at the ground that the OFC Pro League were angry that South had fielded such a weak team against Auckland and that it also only had 2 outfield players on its bench.

It probably explains why so many senior players were on the bench against PNG Hekari.
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Thats part of the reason, the other is we probably cant afford to fly players back and forth whenever we please.
 
SMFC1959 said:
Can someone explain to me WTF we were thinking today ????

We’ve played so many senior players in the second half for a result that has ZERO bearing given we have qualified for the Leaders Group. The points reset to zero, so there’s literally NOTHING to play for !!!!

This is nothing short of a train wreck. It’s not an issue of players coming on for a portion of match time. They’ve played in difficult hot and humid conditions which would have sapped their energy levels.

Are we expecting our players to fly out Sunday morning, sit on a plane for 5.5 hours, then head straight to Lakeside to play against Oakleigh ??? Those players should have flown out on Friday to rest and be ready for Sunday’s match.
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Things would have played out differntly I reckon if Menelaou didn't cop that red... harsh but correct decision. I reckon a couple of the players may have flown out Saturday night but oh well.
 
SMFC1959 said:
The matches against Heidelberg, George Cross and Avondale will be sacrificed due to the OFC Pro League finals. Plus we have a Dockerty Cup fixture as well if we get past Bulleen.

As such, we need to win the St Albans and MelbCity Yth NPL matches just to retain our spot in the top 6 by the end of May.
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And all becuase they think we are going to win $450k??? Jesus we are dumb sometimes.
 
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