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Official South Melbourne Hellas thread 🔵⚪

Any particular reason why Menelaou, OSullivan, Leech, Pope, Bonada, Singh, Coveny etc cant line up tomorrow night? Bonada played a half, the ones that came on much less, and others werent used at all.

We would still lose with those players but we have to try save our goal difference a bit.
 
southmelb said:
Any particular reason why Menelaou, OSullivan, Leech, Pope, Bonada, Singh, Coveny etc cant line up tomorrow night? Bonada played a half, the ones that came on much less, and others werent used at all.

We would still lose with those players but we have to try save our goal difference a bit.
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Risk of injury would be high for the guys that did play tangible minutes (Lackay, Bonada, Mesa)

If the other guys feel good physically I suppose there’s no harm done
 
I’ve waited to process this loss before making any comments.

First to all the South fans who travelled across the Tasman for this match, you are truely amazing. Great scenes in the grandstand. Eden Park looks like a great stadium.

Let’s be honest - we never looked in it. It pains me to say it but we looked terrible today. Our set pieces which have been so effective this year were horrible. We had no killer ball that opened defences. Auckland took out out Uchida and Mikkola and they caught us so many times on transition. When Eliopoulos went down, I just knew things would not end well.

Swibel had 2 big chances to score in that first half but scuffed both opportunities. If the scoreline was 1-1 at halftime, at least we msg have had a chance.

Auckland were just dominant all over the park. We had so much possession but did nothing to with it. Completely ineffective. In the end, Auckland were deserved winners.
 
A great deal was sacrificed for this tournament. I’m going to disagree with some and not declare this a failure. I would say it’s a pass mark.

Obviously it’s bloody disappointing not winning the OFC Pro League. We’re all gutted, but we need to take a step back and look at things with some perspective.

We are playing in an international competition. We are engaging with Oceania Confederation, Football Australia, and both State and Commonwealth Governments as we are involved in sports diplomacy. Which other club can claim to have achieved such things in Victoria, let alone across the country. We are about to receive 15% of the total prize money pool for being runner up. This could be anything between $100K-$200K USD! You’d have to win at least 8-10 NPL Victoria championships just to equal that prize money. That secures the club financially for an extended period and allows the club to sign much better players who will strengthen the starting XI.

The above doesn’t make the pain of missing out on the OFC Pro League championship. We’ve missed out on a massive opportunity and sacrificed a great deal. But I’d like to take a long-term view of how we approach the OFC Pro League. There will be learnings from this exercise. If the club can learn from this experience, then we should come back much stronger in the 2027 OFC Pro League competition.

On the 18th May 2025, we lost 2-0 at home to Port Melbourne at Lakeside and we were dead last in the NPL Victoria competition. On May 24th May 2026, we’ve just missed out on a second Oceania championship. We’ve come along way. More work needs to be done to strengthen the squad. But we have the NPL Victoria, Australian Cup, and later the Australian Championship. Plenty of football to come.
 
Souk said:
Risk of injury would be high for the guys that did play tangible minutes (Lackay, Bonada, Mesa)

If the other guys feel good physically I suppose there’s no harm done
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Lackay and Mesa played what 25-30 mins and Bonada played a half.

Bonada might be risky but we are about to get rid of a whole bunch, they should be used.
 
From smfc Mike X page

#BREAKING: On the #3XY 📻 #SundayFC program, speaking to @P_Kotsy, @SMFC Co-President Andrew Mesourouni said the below about the future of the #OFCProLeague:

🔘@SMFC likely to see an NPL & OFC Pro League squad at some stage (no date given).

🔘OFC Pro League H&A won’t happen next season, but perhaps the season after (season 3).

🔘More of a hybrid competition next year with shorter hubs. More @SMFC games to be played at Lakeside 🏟️, time travelling away won’t be as long.

🔘For example 4 teams in a country at each time (not 8), teams to be spread across 2 countries (instead of all 8 teams in one country). Supposedly this would halve the time teams are away.

🔘#OFCProLeague H&A league by season 3 is the aim.

🔘@SMFC will receive some runners up money from the core prize pool. Amount not specified.

🔘Andrew also noted he can’t understand why @FootballAUS let Heidelberg United make a huge effort to comply to play in Asia only to be then told they can’t.

🔘Andrew noted he appreciated speaking to high level OFC officials about the future of the #OFCProLeague.

🔘Andrew said the viewing numbers on FIFA+ have been significant & he thanked all @SMFC fans travelling & watching at home. Times are getting better & they’re bright!

@SMFC Co-President Bill Papastergiadis also spoke & noted the below:

🔘Disgusted by Frank Lowy’s recent comments.

🔘South paving its own way in professional ⚽️ showing there’s life & opportunity outside the #ALeague.

🔘Bill acknowledged the amazing presence of the South Melbourne fans
 
The reality is we came 2nd in a 2 horse race. We knew back in January this was going to be the final. Im actually still filthy that we gave away the Hume game back in round 2, i was saying back then we dont need to beat Auckland at the Village in Feb, we need to beat them on the final day in May, but off we went killing ourselves in matches that didnt matter. Then of course you have the sending kids to get slaughtered against clubs i despise.

If we are doing this again next year all we need to do is take May seriously, we can literally be PNG Hekari until May, finish in the bottom group, and then beat everyone in Auckland. Its the same scenario, you just have to beat Auckland the last time you play them!

Next year we wont have teams like Preston on -6 and Dandy City on -4. The Preston deduction is the only reason we are still in the top 6.

We also need to prioritise games better, we kept our best team in Fiji to put 8 past Tahiti in a dead rubber when the team should have been back the prior week and preparing to play Oakleigh.

Seriously we are better off just having a B team for the ofc, once the points reset to 0 thats when we send our best over. Maybe the club didnt know the points gets reset until later on like the rest of us, but now that we know the format we dont have to kill ourselves. Vanuatu were the 2nd worst team for about 80% of it and still made the semi final.

I will not accept the same sacrifices made next year.
 
Players flight is 3:15 from nz so gets back around 5:25. I would say at the least sinisa would coach. In hindsight club should have had this game on Tuesday giving players a day to return. Charleston/ trenkov Osullivan coveny leech meneleu Singh all didn't get minutes so could be a slight chance they feature. Meneleu and Leech at the least would give us a strong midfield to work with papadimitriou i guess we'll wait and see
 
hellas_johnny said:
I would say at the least sinisa would coach.
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Sinisa would definitely be in the dugout coaching South Melbourne against Avondale at Lakeside Stadium as we hope to get our NPL Victoria campaign back on track.
hellas_johnny said:
In hindsight club should have had this game on Tuesday giving players a day to return.
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Football Victoria wouldn't allow the game to be postponed though but agree that we should have ideally had a longer turnaround between the OFC Pro League grand final and our match against Avondale.
hellas_johnny said:
Charleston/ trenkov Osullivan coveny leech meneleu Singh all didn't get minutes so could be a slight chance they feature. Meneleu and Leech at the least would give us a strong midfield to work with papadimitriou i guess we'll wait and see
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Charlston should at least be getting a run between the sticks and it'll be good to have Leech and Menelaou able to bolster midfield along with Coveny in the defensive line, as well as possibly welcoming back Dali Gorr Burchmore's brother from injury this week.
 
southmelb said:
The reality is we came 2nd in a 2 horse race. We knew back in January this was going to be the final. Im actually still filthy that we gave away the Hume game back in round 2, i was saying back then we dont need to beat Auckland at the Village in Feb, we need to beat them on the final day in May, but off we went killing ourselves in matches that didnt matter. Then of course you have the sending kids to get slaughtered against clubs i despise.

If we are doing this again next year all we need to do is take May seriously, we can literally be PNG Hekari until May, finish in the bottom group, and then beat everyone in Auckland. Its the same scenario, you just have to beat Auckland the last time you play them!

Next year we wont have teams like Preston on -6 and Dandy City on -4. The Preston deduction is the only reason we are still in the top 6.

We also need to prioritise games better, we kept our best team in Fiji to put 8 past Tahiti in a dead rubber when the team should have been back the prior week and preparing to play Oakleigh.
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Couldnt have said it better...
southmelb said:
Seriously we are better off just having a B team for the ofc, once the points reset to 0 thats when we send our best over. Maybe the club didnt know the points gets reset until later on like the rest of us, but now that we know the format we dont have to kill ourselves. Vanuatu were the 2nd worst team for about 80% of it and still made the semi final.
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as long as we register full squad for no suprises later i agree.... different attitiude if/when it goes home and away....
southmelb said:
I will not accept the same sacrifices made next year.
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100% with you... i would add 'or the same.errors" teething allowance is one off.
 
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