- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
After the most bizarre of waits, where the APL decided it would be a terrific idea to have a lay weekend prior to the 2022-23 A-League decider, we are finally ready for the biggest football match on Australia’s domestic calendar.
Melbourne City have been the class of the field in Australian football for some time, winning trophies left, right and centre and hope to claim a second championship in three seasons with a win this Saturday.
Their opponents, Central Coast Mariners, have the hearts and sentiments of the rest of the football nation with them, seeking a second A-League championship and channelling a rare David versus Goliath moment in Australian sport.
Everyone bar the City faithful want the Mariners to pull off the most remarkable of victories and based on current form, they are a serious hope of doing so at CommBank Stadium on Saturday.
The Roar of the Crowd has held sway again this season and all credit to them. Yours truly was whacking away well before a late-season stumble, Texi Smith and Andrew Prentice kept me honest along the way, whilst Mike Tuckerman and Blayne Treadgold struggled throughout and need a recalibration in the off-season.
Thanks for all your reads and engagement throughout the course of the season and be sure to enter your tip for the decider in the sheet below to have a say as the triumphant voice of the people. Here is the way the panel sees all the action unfolding in what looms as a cracking A-League Grand Final.
Central Coast
The week off won’t have done either of these two sides any favours, but it’s the Mariners who are arguably carrying more momentum into this grand final.
They’ll be backed by the majority of the support inside Commbank Stadium, and they won’t fear a Melbourne City side that they lost narrowly to and then drew with, during the premiership campaign.
City are stacked with game-winners and have plenty of big-match experience of their own. But I have a feeling Nick Montgomery will out-motivate Rado Vidosic and propel his underdog Mariners outfit to a famous victory in front of thousands of Central Coast fans.
Central Coast
If there is any goodness or justice remaining in the world, the big fella upstairs will deliver an A-League championship to the Central Coast Mariners this Saturday night.
My goodness they have been entertaining throughout the season and the Coasties have played a brand a football for which they should be praised from the highest mountain.
Coach Nick Montgomery has proven that his plans and attributes as a manager could well have him in the running for higher honours and his focus on opportunity and youth has held the team together when under pressure, even considering the loss of Garang Kuol that appeared to create a mighty challenging hole to fill at the club.
Mariners coach Nick Montgomery. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
If the Mariners handle the occasion and bring their frantic press for which they are known, the trophy should be heading up the M1 for a Sunday celebration the likes football has not seen for some time. Any stage fright and a quick start from the premiers will see such a party placed in jeopardy.
I’ll be backing the honourable horse in this one and hoping the little engine that could finally claims a second A-League championship.
TBC
Central Coast
Can the Mariners complete one of the best sports comeback stories of the last decade or more? A club that lay broken and dishevelled following an 8-2 loss to Wellington less than five years ago, now sits within one game of being crowned A-League champions.
If Central Coast play with the same speed, intensity and attacking zest as they did in the two games against Adelaide, they most certainly can.
Their attacking combination of Marco Tulio, Jason Cummings and Sam Silvera is on a par with (albeit in a different formation) Melbourne City’s Marco Tilio, Jamie McLaren and Mathew Leckie. The engine rooms match up well, although Aiden O’Neill’s outstanding form marks him as a potential game-changer for City.
Marco Tilio could well be Melbourne City’s match winner. (Photo by Graham Denholm/Getty Images)
It seems CommBank Stadium will be a sea of blue and yellow on Saturday night. If the Mariners fans can recreate the amazing atmosphere that 20,059 produced last week in Gosford, they may be the 12th player that helps Nick Montgomery’s charges write the final chapter to a sporting fairytale that looked as unlikely as a politician’s kept promise not that long ago.
Central Coast
The A-League festival of football concludes on Saturday with a fire-cracker of a fixture between premiers Melbourne City and second-placed Central Coast Mariners.
The scene is set for an evening of intrigue in Parramatta. The field will be littered with Socceroos talent, but tonight will belong to Christian Theoharous, who turned in a sensational cameo last weekend in the semi-final against Adelaide United.
The first 70 minutes will go as expected, the raucous Mariners fans roaring on their team while all they can do is counter-attack against the Rolls-Royce Melbourne City midfield.
Once Valon Berisha has struck from distance to give City a lead, the introduction of Theoharous will see the “away” team crank up the pressure until Beni N’Kololo is left free to head home an equaliser with less than 10 minutes on the clock.
As all the fans are looking forward to extra time and more entertainment, it will be our hero who unlocks the City defence, Aiden O’Neill scything down the tricky winger for a free kick right on the edge.
With the clock ticking past full-time, Josh Nisbet will unfurl a training-ground routine and Jason Cummings will tap home from a yard out in front of the huge bank of Mariners fans to win the game and the championship.
| Grand Final | Mike | Stuart | Blayne | Andrew | Texi | The Crowd |
| MCY vs CCM | CCM | CCM | TBC | CCM | CCM | ? |
| Last week | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| New total | 53 | 67 | 56 | 66 | 64 | 75 |
As always, get involved as part of The Crowd and take on The Roar‘s expert tipsters using the form below.