By Greg Blake
Encouraged after tumbling home in a fourth round thriller against South Hobart last weekend, Wollongong comes to Melbourne this weekend determined to keep the Australian Championship doorway ever so slightly ajar. It’s a must-win for the Wolves when they take on Group B leaders, Heidelberg United Alexander, in Sunday’s 5th round 1pm game at Warrior headquarters.
The Wolves are at long odds to pull off a doomsday double and squeeze into the quarters; a win here and backing up against the Marconi Stallions to complete the preliminaries. The form guide isn’t kind reading. Heidelberg United will likely pull the plug on Wollongong’s life support this weekend. And whilst setting new records isn’t a game-day focus, smashing them has become almost commonplace.
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Alexander is currently one team goal away from scoring one hundred – including cups and finals games – during the 2025 campaign. This would beat a club record in top level competition, currently held by the 1996 team, which managed 99 goals in 36 games in all competitions that year. A century for the current team would be Alexander’s first in 63 years, since 1960 and 1961, when they scored 113 and 111 goals respectively in the lower divisions.
And the ‘Raging Bul’, Bul Juach is still chasing Bobby Despotovski’s 33 all-competitions goals as part of that 1996 team. Despotovski’s 33 is a club record at the top level, just ahead of ‘King’ Kenny Athiu’s 32 goals scored in 2017. Coming into the Wolves game Juach has 29 goals, the same single-season total as club legend and all-time record goalscorer, Gary Cole, managed in his most prolific season in 1980.
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Heidelberg United v Wollongong Wolves Tickets
Alexander may be 43 games into a massive 2025 campaign, but the now-household names – Collins, Sozer, Fulton, Lethlean, Juach, Yokokawa, Bisetto et al – are still applying early-season intensity to a game plan rich with stylish predictability and a touch of elan. Lesiotis is on a plateau of his own, blitzing on a cocktail of Adrenalin and jet fuel, it seems.
The three newcomers – Marcus Humbert, Ciaran Bramwell and ‘Hollywood’ Angus Taylor – have managed five goals between them already and slotted in like Lego pieces. Humbert’s strike at ‘The Palace’ against Marconi last weekend continued Alexander goals coming from full backs fetish. They’ve contributed 17 percent of the team’s 99 season total.
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Heidelberg United v Wollongong Wolves Tickets
As for Taylor, he’s another beauty recruited out of Tassie. I’m not sure if women – or men, for that matter – actually swoon these days. The bloke can play alright, but he’s a dead-set looker as well. Straight off the red carpet. In the ‘he’s so dreamy’ category. Bit like another of Tassie’s quality exports from back in the day, Errol Flynn. Google him!
Taylor has a touch of Sean Ellis or Steven Pace about him. He looks untroubled, unhurried, as if the game slows around him. He’s also a natural goalscorer. We’ve only seen ‘Hollywood’ in brief glimpses, but if the previews are anything to go by, Taylor is a ripper in the making.
I’ve been ruminating over a Catalina Street equivalent of Marconi’s loftily-nicknamed ‘Palace’. The nod to the palace more obvious after Marconi’s Anton Mlinaric clash with Wollongong’s Thomas James during a Championship clash recently. The news this week that James had been suspended for four games shone a spotlight on the game.
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The online clip was all “shocking” and “squirrel grip” clickbait. Watched with a couple of mates. Much mirth ensued. With James flat on his back, Mlinaric straddled him like a massive dockside gantry crane down on the docks and, in so doing, gave the Wollongong player an uncomfortable viewing of the crown jewels.
James plays best vertically, but he managed a bit of a trouser tweak on Mlinaric on his journey upwards. Like turning a range top dial to simmer. A fair dinkum squirrel grip would mean James’ access to undercarriage advantage would assure he and his family sufficient nuts to survive winter. Probably sutures for Mlinaric.
Ninth rule of Fight Club: Never lead with ‘Jatz Crackers’. And was James charged with foraging for food? Or attempted jewel heist?
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Anyway, for Olympic Village, perhaps The Vault? Alcatraz? Fort Knox? In the end I fancied ‘The Castle’. Because as Wollongong will likely find out after a 30 year absence, it’s tough to take the Warriors down at this place . Just ask four A League teams over the past two seasons.
The current 51-game unbroken team goal scoring streak aside, Alexander have lost just one of their last 51 games at ‘The Castle’ and have been held scoreless here just once in their last 49 starts.
Expect a fight, but Alexander will be in the quarters by 3pm Sunday.
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Heidelberg United v Wollongong Wolves Tickets
Footnote : While some of the historical record-keeping is patchy in terms of cup games etc. back to 1908, as it stands, should Heidelberg United Alexander score its 100th goal of 2025, the Warriors would become only the eighth club confirmed* to have managed a season century in Victoria’s most senior competition, over 117 seasons. The Victorian teams with 100 or more are:
Year Team Total Goals
1959 Wilhelmina 114
1958 Wilhelmina 108
1954 Hakoah 106
1932 Footscray Thistle 101
1983 Melbourne Croatia 101
2023 Avondale 101
1935 Hakoah 100
