What a blast! The Australian Championship finally got underway at Lakeside last Friday and I couldn’t have asked for a better night. Well, that is except for the 7pm kick off. I came in straight from work but once I saw the kick-off time creep up on me had to ditch my plans at the pub and head straight to the stadium. The atmosphere was great even before kick-off and to my relief it was very clearly a level above a regular (even a big) NPL game.

I got in no issues with my membership and saw the social club was packed with heaps of unfamiliar faces, all dressed in blue and white. Outside the social club by the stand the club had set up a number of activations. A coffee tent with Fredo Espressos, a classic football kit store which was fantastic to browse through and a number of food trucks including a souvlaki truck. The whole stadium was open so I did a lap with a friend before kick-off, enjoying the novelty of the terracing. Finally we returned to the Clarendon Corner from where we watched the match. We had a few mates stuck outside in huge queues waiting to buy tickets but they eventually joined us, although they missed the massive tifo that was unfurled ahead of kick off.

In the first half the game was scrappy to say the least. Although our backline was comprised of existing squad members, our midfield and forward was transformed with new faces and early on it seemed there were many issues with the combination plays up front. Generally the first half was scrappy with only fleeting moments of glory, including (unfortunately for us) the opening goal from Sydney Olympic which came out of nowhere. Ali Auglah fired a shot from well outside the box to give Olympic the lead, an impressive opening goal to launch the new competition but one that Lopex perhaps should have stopped had he been more prepared.

Olympic then enjoyed a brief purple patch before South settled again and retained the lion’s share of the possession. Unfortunately for us, except for a few long throws and corners, Sydney Olympic prevented us creating opportunities in the box and often, counter attacked quickly finding themselves in 2-on-2 situations on multiple occasions.  Finally though we got our own breakthrough. At the end of the first half, Yuki Uchida got to the end of a scrappy goal mouth scramble to give us an equaliser.

In the second half South once again looked the team in control, eventually taking the lead through Oliver Lavale after yet another scrappy goal mouth scramble. Olympic did have their moments but really never looked like equalising, until Ryan Fuetz scored from yet another long shot to restore parity. Just as the game looked done and dusted Jordan Lampard managed to snatch the win for South after a curling shot at the 87th minute gave us a well-deserved 3-2 lead.

It was encouraging to see the team settle a bit in the second half but South will need to improve in the coming games to qualify for the playoffs. Queenslanders, Moreton City, also managed a 3-2 against Broadmeadow Magic, away no less, and may prove a tricky opponent in the next round. We have them at home in a Sunday twilight fixture, hopefully with good weather, it will be another South classic.

After the game we hung around to soak in the atmosphere which included a refreshed merch store and a great Greek band in the social club. The place was pumping but we decided to head a pub on Clarendon instead to cap off another great night at Lakeside.

We find ourselves top of the group and I think it’s fair to say that we should expect to top it. Next week’s game against Moreton City should be a win at Lakeside owing to our excessive transfer window spend ahead of this competition, however the reality is our squad seems to still be facing some teething issues, so we’ll wait and see. Over 6,000* were at the game on Friday and with similar activations and promotions in place for this weekend one would hope we would see about half of that at Lakeside this Sunday.

Nearly 20,000 people attended the competition in its first round of fixtures, which is a great result. The first week ticked all the boxes for me and showed what a real second division would look like, spoiler alert, it looked good. The SBS broadcast was a clear step up from the NPL offering and the social engagement online was really healthy and active too. Most encouragingly for me though was that in real life, the game and the competition seemed to generate excitement and actually mean something to the fans.

Let’s go South!