2026 Australia Cup final rounds thread

[Monoethnic Social Club]

IMO A-league clubs shouldn't try to stop Pro/Rel, in an ideal world we would have it.

However as the world stands now we don't have a division to promoted from and relegated to.

Until that is set up (hopefully Aus. champ becomes that) then its just pissing in the wind chat.

Ofcourse it is but so is wanting a "fair" cup draw

 

[LFC]

Yeah it's a bit annoying. Wouldn't mind merging them in one place.

yer its a PIA, got my vote to merge sir.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

re, I try alot but dam busier than normal this current season.
Been to couple Apia ones but I keep low - I'll jump up and down once we stfu Glenardo's hoof ballers fingers crossed.

Best thing bout last night - was with a nephew, one son, the daughter and her boyfriend.
My daughter said its the first time she's been at a pen shootout (mind you she did about 5yrs back one of my GF's obviously Dad didn’t rate haha) and what a pen shootout it was ! epic.

Love it mate... congrats to the Cros, another ALeague franchise off the table... Lets hope we help get rid of yet another one next week.

 

[Glenardo]

If you lose to Olympic then we shoudl ALSO start the conversation about pro/rel no?

That actually would be a boil over given the state of Olympic at the moment. For those on here who dont followe npl, they’ve basically hit their lowest ebb ever as a club this season. Hopefully they’ve now hit rock bottom and are slowly starting to try to turn things around but still a ways to go and they’ll need to pull something out of their ass to avoid relegation

 

[SMFC1959]

hope to see you guys get through and send anotherAL team packing.

Lets hope South can knock out Adelaide and make it 4 A League teams eliminated.

 

[patjennings]

understand patj, my comment was generally for all APL sides not CCM specifically for I know they do it their way compared to others.
Thats a side issue as well, each franchise works differently, each franchise are at different levels comp wise State to State.
Another issue at hand.
Question ? how many in last nights side were Snr's barring Redmayne ?

I would say Roux was the only other over 23. Then Steele off the bench. Not sure of Mauragis age he might be 24. The rest very young with gqite a few starters under 20 as well as the rest of the bench.

 

[Glenardo]

why do we have 2 Aus Cup threads wondering ?

I was wondering about you Beretta
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As a side note, nice to see someone else posting some photos.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

I would say Roux was the only other over 23. Then Steele off the bench. Not sure of Mauragis age he might be 24. The rest very young with gqite a few starters under 20 as well as the rest of the bench.

Ollie's goal was nice...

 

[ashtongate]

Maybe, or maybe A-League clubs should put more effort into the Australia Cup.

This cup competition is at the wrong time of year for them. Adelaide haven't even finished building their squad yet. Barely recovered from the too-long off season.

 

[erogenouszone]

Certainly I think SU58 looked the better, more likely to score for most of the match. A couple of coast boys with a point to prove against the Mariners as well. I thought for a very young team (minus Redmayne and Roux) CCM looked hard to break down. They do need more going forward though. Lavale tried hard but had little support up front

Bit concerning for you guys moving forward for your respective A League season that Redmayne wasn't able to get near one penalty.

 

[NR93]

This cup competition is at the wrong time of year for them. Adelaide haven't even finished building their squad yet. Barely recovered from the too-long off season.

Not withstanding my thoughts on the draw nonsense.

This is such a cop out by aleague sides. It’s the domestic cup, your season starts now not in October. Plan and act accordingly.

Number of competitions all over the world start just into preseason (Continental qualifiers, Scottish league cup for example) and sides are able to adapt.

 

[erogenouszone]

why do we have 2 Aus Cup threads wondering ?

I was wondering about you Beretta
View attachment 8404View attachment 8405View attachment 8406View attachment 8407

Didn't want to pay the 30 dollar a ticket grand stand seats ?

 

[Glenardo]

Not withstanding my thoughts on the draw nonsense.

This is such a cop out by aleague sides. It’s the domestic cup, your season starts now not in October. Plan and act accordingly.

Number of competitions all over the world start just into preseason (Continental qualifiers, Scottish league cup for example) and sides are able to adapt.

Good point this, would imagine the clubs in the early qualification rounds for the champions league/Europa league/conference league etc in the middle of the European summer would be in a similar situation. There’s an interesting mentality amongst some fans in this country re their fandom only applying to the a league. They don’t care when their team plays in the ACL, they don’t care when their team plays in the Australia cup, only when they play in the isuzu Ute a league

 

[erogenouszone]

Would be nice if Marconi took the Australia Cup a bit more seriously, however considering their performances the past few years it's obvious they don't. APIA certainly do.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

Good point this, would imagine the clubs in the early qualification rounds for the champions league/Europa league/conference league etc in the middle of the European summer would be in a similar situation. There’s an interesting mentality amongst some fans in this country re their fandom only applying to the a league. They don’t care when their team plays in the ACL, they don’t care when their team plays in the Australia cup, only when they play in the isuzu Ute a league

Thats one of the main differences (at least to me) between club and franchise...

 

[HonestSpursFan]

I think you have to look deeper. SFC play with a strong academy side that plays against NPL sides. CCM have traditionally played kids up a grade. E.g. academy side is in reality closer to an U20 side. U20 side more like an U18 side. That's how they develop kids when they play a few seasons together. Really more to do with the scale compared to SFC and WSW.

Fair enough, we are a talent factory with a lot of young players (this extends to the men's and women's sides). Players that aren't young are usually marquees (foreigners) or veterans (Rhyan Grant). That's only becoming even more so the case.

 

[SMFC1959]

Good point this, would imagine the clubs in the early qualification rounds for the champions league/Europa league/conference league etc in the middle of the European summer would be in a similar situation. There’s an interesting mentality amongst some fans in this country re their fandom only applying to the a league. They don’t care when their team plays in the ACL, they don’t care when their team plays in the Australia cup, only when they play in the isuzu Ute a league

100% this

All of us who follow our respective NPL clubs want to win everything, whether it is the state NPL competition, state cup competition, Australia Cup, Australian Championship, (OFC Pro League for South), etc. It is irrelevant what the competition is - we follow our club everywhere and we want to win at every opportunity.

I would love for South to win the Australia Cup (highly unlikely) and qualify for the AFC Champions League Two competition. There would be 50 of us at a drop of the hat that would travel to the first away match (hopefully in a sunny tourist spot in South East Asia).

 

[NR93]

Thats one of the main differences (at least to me) between club and franchise...

Not sure you can make that claim. Given what crowds you get for a npl game compared to a cup game. It seems to run opposite in the npl clubs case.

What is probably correct is that the diehards of either a club and “franchise” know how to support correctly (cup,league,CL/OFC etc) but the vast majority of those clubs/franchises suppporters support in a very odd way.

 

[Glenardo]

Would be nice if Marconi took the Australia Cup a bit more seriously, however considering their performances the past few years it's obvious they don't. APIA certainly do.

But as far as I can see they do take it seriously. They just keep losing. To be fair apart from this years bad loss to Olympic the two before that we’re both v APIA in the final nsw round, both away at APIA, that’s always gonna be a flip of a coin. Unfortunate because it would be good for the club and comp to have a good cup night at Marconi

 

[HonestSpursFan]

understand patj, my comment was generally for all APL sides not CCM specifically for I know they do it their way compared to others.
Thats a side issue as well, each franchise works differently, each franchise are at different levels comp wise State to State.
Another issue at hand.
Question ? how many in last nights side were Snr's barring Redmayne ?

Nobody 25 or over other than Andrew Redmayne and Storm Roux. Only two foreigners (Scotsman Noah McCann, age 37 and Kiwi Storm Roux, age 33). United actually fielded three foreigners (Japanese Koya Nakano and Tomoki Wada, and Fijian Leroy Jennings). Sofascore says that Lucas Mauragis (CCM) got MOTM based on ratings.

Mariners' starting 11 had an average age of 23.2, which seems reasonable but that doesn't account for two things: A. the obvious outliers (they fielded guys aged 33 and 37) and B. the bench (which was all under-19s except for Harry Steele). In comparison, United fielded an 11 with an average age of 25.8 but without extreme outliers (since there was more diversity in the ages of their players, whereas Mariners had a 17-24-year-olds plus a 33-year-old and a 37-year-old).