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2026 Australia Cup final rounds thread

We were outplayed and outclassed and had to wait a long time before we showed drive and focus.

Our youth and inexperience was on show today.

Our defensive group was disorganised and ineffectual. Players were marking field positions not players, gave Sydney far too much time and space all over the pitch, and made such poor decisions about what to do when they had to choose.

The sun shining in Bouzanis's eyes for the first ten minutes was ridiculous but had nothing to do with conceding our first goal. People just didn't know what to do without a 'boss' centreback to organise us. When you have greater numbers and there are open opponents it shouts volumes.

I had trouble working out who our fullbacks were for a long time with players seeming to have fluid roles and just go where they thought best.

Some of that will improve with work together - at least to the extent of not having as many loose passes and kicks to nowhere as we saw.

I have a problem with the ref from watching the game live.

The third goal came off a Sydney player running forcefully right through the back of the Brisbane player. I know that was a foul because he was calling the same play without half the force a foul all the rest of the game.

Sydney did not seem to have any concerns about the ref pulling up excessively rough play and had a lot of fun cleaning up their Roar opponents at times.

Sometime between the second and third goals (I think) a Sydney player in the box had his arm directly out at right angles to his body and clearly got hit on the arm. It was as obvious an 'arm in unnatural position' as you will get and the ref completely missed, or completely disregarded it. It was a blatant penalty and given our poor start we could certainly have done with the chance.

Bouzanis hardly made halfway with his first few kicks and found Sydney players far too often. He made a couple of great saves later but he was not ready to play when the whistle went at the start.

Bility and Valkanis are not a centreback pairing for senior football at this level. They looked lost and clueless anytime the ball came near them in the first hour - and at no stage did they look like they had any command of their space.

Illic and Nasso looked more like wingers or wide forward players than fullbacks. Adding them to Bility and Valkanis did not feel resilient at any time in the match.

Stajic is looking good going in both directions. I think he will continue to improve as the season gets closer and be among the best of the defensive mids in the league.

I do like Illic's techincal ability and fast control. He can put on a burst of pace with the ball at his feet and get through solid defence. Just a lot of his choices and execution after that spoilt his good work in the buildup.

Nam is fantastic. Vision, execution, pace and creativity. The team needs to learn how to work together or his efforts will also be wasted.

We showed glimpses that went nowhere all night.

Lauton is a wonder. He got severely smashed early in the game - as he often is early in games when the refs let a bit go in favour of 'let's just settle down and play football guys'. As long as he was out there he was playing his heart out, creating opportunities and covering defensively with some lungbusting efforts to get back. I hope we can get a working team around him so his efforts produce results.

Maieroni was hit and miss. Vidic was often invisible.

Ngor has flair, skill and pace but showed he can also be blind to team mates in better positions. Twice at least he did fantastically well to get forward with the ball then tried to go himself when others had gone with him and were in much better positions.

Earlier today I was thinking about the Ange era and player by player not a single position on the pitch has someone anywhere near that level in it - with the possible exception of Stajic/Brattan and the yet to be proven Nam. We are a shadow of our club's greatness and the overall picture today was an U23 side playing in a senior top level football competition.

We need an Aldred to give the defence some structure rather than just reactions.

We need time to get these players into a team - and making and finding the runs that were just lost balls today.

Our play from about the hour mark improved immeasurably. Sure we were still vulnerable, but we had Sydney back and defending for long periods of time. That at least gives us some promise for the season ahead.

Sydney deserved to win today but they should have lost one goal and conceded a penalty before they got over the line.

We are not ready for this level of football yet. See you again in a couple of months and we will be a different side.
 
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