We have stumbled into the Australia Cup. I don’t understand why, this year of all years, but we have.

South was gifted their most favourable draw in recent memory to get to this point and even then, just scrapped by.

It started with a 3-0 win against VPL1 cellar dwellers Eastern Lions, and was then followed by VPL1 highfliers Bentleigh Greens who we stole the game from with an injury time equaliser and an extra time winner.

In the next round we faced VPL2 relegation candidates Pascoe Vale, who opted to play their U23s and nearly beat us, if it wasn’t for yet another late comeback.

Finaly, we faced NPL opposition in the final qualification round, in a cold night out at Dandenong City.

We took an almost full-strength squad to Dandenong, despite some calls to rest players ahead of this weekend’s game against Preston.

That squad selection only makes sense where we win, and early on it looked like a boneheaded move.

Dandenong took the lead about 30 minutes in after a counter attack found Jamie Latham out wide (and questionably onside). Latham slotted it home from a ridiculous angle and we found ourselves down 1-0.

Early in the second half the increasingly fabled Cohadzic hairdryer looks like it may have been used, because we came out firing. Skapoulas collected the ball out wide and sent in a beautiful cross that was headed in by Brennan for the equaliser. 1-1.

There weren’t any more goals in regular time meaning the game got pushed out to extra time, and after that half an hour of play the teams still found themselves level, taking us to penalties.

We had a perfect start. Lopez saved the first penalty from former South player Yagoub Mustafa to get us going and Jankovic converted his shot.

Valli Cesnik for Dandenong stepped up… and beat Lopez… unfortunately for him he beat the goal as well by firing over the cross bar.

The teams traded goals until finally Nathan Hancock stepped up for a must score chance, only for Lopez to save yet another penalty and put us through to the National Rounds of the Australia Cup!

How did we make it here? I don’t really know, but it’s certainly something to celebrate!

It was an overall astounding night for Australian football. The Socceroos also sealed qualification to the World Cup and most importantly… Nunawading beat Hume 4-0 to qualify for the National Rounds of the Australia Cup? Jeeze!