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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.
 
RIMB said:
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.
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Not ready to play? Does he not train? He was directly at fault for two goals yesterday and Valkanis should start dropping hints about the number 2 keeper to get a rocket up him.
RIMB said:
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.
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Yeah but besides Lauton I didn't much of an attacking threat during the periods of dominance, Sydney just backed off due to the three goal lead and that own goal by A.Popovic was really fucking weird. Sydney's keeper should have talked more during that situation to let him know that he was essentially on his own.

You have some good players however considering it's mainly a new bunch of players they need much more time, more training needs to be done and I don't rate Valkanis as a coach. Agressive play without proper football behind it is pointless, a better coach would get much more out of those young players as I can see real potential there.
 
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erogenouszone said:
Not ready to play? Does he not train? He was directly at fault for two goals yesterday and Valkanis should start dropping hints about the number 2 keeper to get a rocket up him.

Yeah but besides Lauton I didn't much of an attacking threat during the periods of dominance, Sydney just backed off due to the three goal lead and that own goal by A.Popovic was really fucking weird. Sydney's keeper should have talked more during that situation to let him know that he was essentially on his own.

You have some good players however considering it's mainly a new time they need much more time, more training needs to be done and I don't rate Valkanis as a coach. Agressive play without proper football behind it is pointless, a better coach would get much more out of those young players as I can see real potential there.
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Pretty much agree entirely with you.

The Bouzanis long kick has been an obvious strength so the first few kicks that did not make halfway were just odd. He picked up his kicking game later in the match. Maybe the strong winds that we felt where we parked the car were still there but we didn't feel them in the stands where I was.

It just felt like nobody at the back had any idea how to construct a group defensive effort or how to react to anything. Players were still going to coach Valkanis during the game presumably to ask what they should do in specific circumstances.

Not having Joel King or Tate Russell out there might be part of the unsettled defensive group too.

The own goal was such a perfect example of the game to me.

We had an isolated runner up the wing off the back of good setup play who crossed a lovely ball if a Roar player had gone with him and anticipated it. And Popovic converted something that should never have happened. A glimpse of potential up the wing but not backed up by anything from us in the box.

There was a moment when Bility for us was running back to a through ball from your team and he got ahead and position on the Sydney player who was challenging for the ball with him - then instead of kicking it out under pressure he tried to play it with the guy right on his heels and lost it. Like he had forgotten or did not realise the Sydney player was there. Not quite the scale of the own goal, but it turned what had been a good recovery into an immediate goal threat.

Our corner kicks were delivered beautifully by Nam - that looks like being something we can work with - but we had the basic strategy of jamming everyone in the goal mouth and hoping rather than any actual plays.

Sydney on the other hand were passing really well and cut through us every time they chose to. Good cohesive play with accurate passing and controlling both the ball and the play. We had to either commit to a press or drop back and we went with a few players trying to pressure a greater number of well spaced players.

I had trouble recognising many of your players and was even thinking one of yours was Tom Aldred from the back until it clicked that he was wearing blue. You are playing well together and I would have liked to face you later in the Cup to see how we are shaping up for this season without suggesting that is why you won - just interested in how we improve from here.
 
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