Following the 3-0 win against Eastern Lions and the subsequent fifth round draw of the Dockerty/Australian Cup we thought we’d check in with what’s next for South.

In the fifth round, 32 Victorian teams will compete. The 16 winners will progress to the sixth round, the 8 winners of that will progress to the seventh round, and then finally 4 Victorian clubs will qualify for the Australian Cup National Rounds as well as the Dockerty Cup semi-finals.

That means South has three more games to go before the national rounds and per the draw the next knockout fixture will be against Bentleigh Greens.

Bentleigh are currently in the VPL1 after being relegated from the NPL in 2023. Last year they managed a mid-table finish in the VPL1 and this year they are doing much better with an eye to returning to the NPL.

The Greens are currently in 2nd place after 10 rounds, just behind the undefeated Melbourne City. They are currently being coached by George Katsakis (yes, formerly of Heidelberg) and if rumours are to be believed Katsakis is actually an outside chance to nab the currently vacant South head coaching role.

Bentleigh qualified for the fifth round after a narrow 3-2 win against George Cross. Although the Greens are certainly a tough fixture for South, it is certainly a winnable one – subject to where we land in terms of coaching staff and playing style.

But the real question is – did we get stooged? Of the 32 remaining teams there are 10 NPL teams (including us), 8 VPL1 teams, 6 VPL2 teams and 8 teams from the lower leagues including Balmoral (from State 5!). Based on that distribution, yes we did cop a better than average opponent however, as always it could have been worse – Green Gully will be facing Thunder in the only all NPL clash!

Noting the current fixturing as well, as many as 9 out of 16 clubs in the sixth round may be NPL opposition, so in all likelihood, should we qualify the competition will get tougher!

For more fixtures see below

https://websites.mygameday.app/comp_info.cgi?a=FIXTURE&compID=646595&c=0-10664-0-0-0