By Greg Blake
This Sunday may be Father’s Day, but the afternoon will feature the mother of all potentially massive games to kick-start the opening weekend of 2026 NPL Victoria finals series. The bureau predicts 18 degrees and spring sunshine. Just perfect for a cut-throat elimination final between historic Greek rivals, South Melbourne Hellas and Heidelberg United Alexander. A boisterous and loud Lakeside Stadium crowd is anticipated.
Heidelberg’s luckless winter of stumbling has seemingly ended as abruptly and mysteriously as it appeared in late May and came so perilously close to wrecking the season altogether. The re-boot, the jump start, the day of reckoning – call it what you will – came at this ground against this same opponent just a couple of weeks ago. Essentially needing a win to simply keep the season alive, the Warriors came from behind that day to beat Hellas 2-1 thanks to a couple of really special goals, from Kayne Razmovski and Christian Theoharous.
Heidelberg coach, John Anastasiadis, reckons he’s just switched one headache for another. “This one is the good kind”, he said this week. “With players like (KarL) O’Sullivan and (Fletcher) Fulton getting right and coming back now, we’ve got close to a full squad coming into the finals, so the headache is who to leave out of the team. Which is much better than the headache we had when we just couldn’t win a game and then we had probably the worst week of my coaching life”.
That week in purgatory commenced with the Warriors losing a second successive Dockerty Cup final, going down 3-1 after leading against Preston. Then came the mid-week Australia Cup penalty loss to rank outsiders, the North Sunshine Eagles. And the galling 4-5 defeat – after leading by two – at home at the hands of Hume which followed days later was considered by many as the end of the line for 2026. “It was all in one week”, said an animated Alexander boss. “One week”!
“Looking back, I think the players were shattered when the decision was announced (on May 29) that the club couldn’t compete in Asia”, Anastasiadis revealed. “I think that came as a real blow after we’d been on a high for months preparing for it. We knew we had to find something (after the Hume defeat), but credit the players because I think they probably got together and decided that they weren’t going to just let the season slip away”.
South Melbourne is negotiating its way through a similarly complicated minefield of games in a variety of competitions as the Warriors faced in 2025. “But they’ll be tough on Sunday, no doubt about it”, insists Alexander’s third year coach, Anastasiadis. “South Melbourne didn’t have their full team in when we beat them recently, and we recognise that. They have a very good squad and I reckon they will have their strongest side out there for this one.
Preston and Avondale – sixth and third finishers respectively on the final NPL ladder – meet on Saturday in the other elimination final. Should Alexander win their game the following day, they face one of two tough road trips in week two of the finals. If Preston wins, the Warriors will travel to play long-time bogey team, Hume City, in the semi finals. An Avondale victory and the semi final road for Heidelberg must travel away to meet premiers, Oakleigh.
Although these clubs had a couple of critical appointments last season, Alexander and Hellas haven’t met in an NPL final for a decade. Despite sharing in four premierships, three championships, six grand finals and ten finals series between the two clubs in the years since, the last final they played against each other was back in 2016, with a grand final spot at stake.
Under lights at Olympic Village the Warriors led that final through a Sean Ellis goal inside the first minute. But Rueben Way’s controversial straight red send-off 33 minutes in put Alexander on the back foot and Hellas scored twice in quick succession late in proceedings and took the honours in a 2-1 win.
For the record, in two of John Anastasiadis’ four senior Victorian titles he has led teams from the elimination final to grand final success and the championship. The first in 2006, when he coached third placed Hellas to three straight wins and grand final success against Altona Magic. In 2017 he led Bentleigh Greens to a trio of triumphs and from fourth to a grand final win against Heidelberg United.
And his final word on the finals campaign from Johnny A. “Now that we’re in it, we’ll give it a good shake”
Muttered criticism about the merits or otherwise of finals deciding the championship, as opposed to first-past-the-post, will be forgotten by the time supporters wake this coming Sunday morning. That tingle of excited anticipation kicks in and by the time you find a parking spot and watch others streaming towards the stadium, there’s a spring in your step as you follow their lead. It’s a feeling you can’t bottle.
Get the family together and hit Lakeside Stadium to support JA and the boys for this one. Be loud. Smile. Enjoy the day.
Warrior Nation!
