Semi Final Weekend Marked by Heavy Favourites
As we reach the final weekend in May we arrive at the Semi Final stage of the Lakoseljac and Women’s Statewide Cup competitions.
In the Lakoseljac Cup it will be Devonport taking on Kingborough and South Hobart up against Olympia. In the Women’s Statewide Cup, Taroona host Launceston United and Devonport travel to Kingborough. On paper, there are four clear favourites for these matches. In fact, I can’t recall a Semi-Final weekend where we will enter each of the 4 games with such overwhelming expectations over which of the sides will progress to Cup Final day. In a fixturing quirk, we saw 3 of the 4 matchups play out in the league competitions last weekend and they returned 7-0, 5-1 and 7-1 score lines!
But as the old saying goes, anything can happen in Cup Football. It’s a far more volatile format than the league is and there is a reason you see more underdogs making headlines for winning Cup competitions than league titles. The larger the sample size, the more the stronger sides are favoured, but over 90 minutes of action, we have seen time and time again that the unexpected can occur. So can any of the underdogs cause a major boilover this weekend? Let’s dive and see what is facing them.
Home at Last, Strikers Seeking Yet Another Cup Final Appearance
In the first of the 2 Lakoseljac Cup Semi-Finals, the Devonport Strikers will host the Kingborough Lions. Yes, you read that correctly, the Strikers have indeed finally drawn a home Cup tie and will get to play a Lakoseljac Cup game in front of the Valley Road faithful! It breaks a streak of 10 consecutive road games drawn out and 13 consecutive road trips in total that they had previously copped. No doubt they will draw massive home support for this one as a result of finally getting the chance to see their side play live in this competition. In the time since they last hosted a Cup game, they’ve won this Cup twice and made the final on another occasion.
The two sides met at this venue just a week ago and the end result was a decisive 5-1 win to the Strikers. So what can the Lions do to swing things so significantly in such a short space of time? Well keeping 11 men on the park would be a start. Last week the Lions going down to 10 men cost them any hope of a second-half fightback after they had started the second 45 well. But you’re just not going to beat an opposition of this calibre when you have one hand tied behind your back so obviously staying at a full complement is pivotal. Converting scoring chances is the other big area they must be better in, they’ve created some decent chances in their 2 games against Devonport but scored just the 1 goal from it, a late consolation marker last week. So the Lions simply must be more clinical and take any good chance that falls to them. They are likely going to need multiple goals given they have shown an inability to keep this Strikers side out, so taking what this stingy Strikers defence offers up is their only hope of turning the tables.
Jez Kenth is an astute tactician so we will see if he has learned anything from last week’s encounter to allow the Lions to spring a surprise, but there is no doubt the Devonport Strikers will be expecting to advance to the decider here and play in a 4th Lakoseljac Cup Final in 7 seasons.
Will South’s Dominance Over Warriors Continue?
Later in the evening, the Olympia Warriors will welcome South Hobart to Empire Couriers Park for the second of the Lakoseljac Cup Semis. South Hobart have played Olympia 3 times so far in 2022 for 3 resounding victories. The Summer Cup saw a 4-1 win to South, on the opening night of the NPL season it was 5-0 to South and then just last week South cruised to a 7-0 victory in the second of their league meetings. So it’s fair to say they will be overwhelmingly expected to cruise on through to the decider, though nothing can ever truly be considered straightforward when it comes to a Cup Semi Final. Still, they are sitting third in the NPL and scoring goals at an impressive clip against a side who have leaked goals all year, so this does appear South’s game to lose.
The Warriors have struggled in the NPL this season, winning just 1 of their 7 games but have found some success in the Cup and it now looks to be their best hope of salvaging some success from season 2022. They looked like they were set to be eliminated in the Round of 16 before Luke Huigsloot’s dismissal turned the game and saw them storm over the top of New Town White Eagles to score 4 times in the final 15 minutes and win 5-3. The Quarter-Finals saw them comfortably accounting for Northern Rangers 3-0 in what was probably their best performance of the year. If they are any chance of upsetting South they will need to improve on both those showings though, it’s a big step up in quality they face here and will take a level we haven’t seen from them so far this year.
White Hot Strikers Head South
Looking now at the Women’s Statewide Cup and the Kingborough Lions will be hoping that Clennett’s Lightwood Park and the travel factor is worth plenty of goals in their favour, as they entertain the Devonport Strikers just a week after they were utterly dismantled by them 7-1 at Valley Road.
It was an absolute blowout last week as Jazmin White ran riot, scoring 5 times and torching their defence with her turn of pace. Perhaps the Lions are going to need to sit deeper and not play with a high defensive line this week because time after time they were caught out by White’s sheer pace that allowed her to get in behind them and 1 on 1 with the keeper. The defence has been the area that has plagued them this season, conceding 28 goals in 5 WSL games against the competition’s top four sides and unless they tighten up in this area, they simply won’t be advancing to the Cup Final.
They can draw some inspiration from Round 1 meeting between the pair when they pushed the Strikers and arguably should have won the game in what was a 3-2 loss. In that game they showed they can take it up to this opposition and cause them some defensive headaches. The Strikers have added players and only gotten stronger since that match however as we saw last weekend, so it’s still a massive task to try and reverse such a decisive result in such a short time. I suppose we are about to find out just how much home ground counts for!
Pirates To Park the Ship?
In the last of the Semi Final clashes, Taroona will be hoping the strides they have made over the last month are enough to close the gap to a Launceston United side who are absolutely flying right now. The league table results paint a pretty clear picture of who we should expect to progress, with United sitting some 18 points and 47 goals ahead of Taroona already, and the 5-1 win United enjoyed at Kelvedon Park a month earlier suggests the same.
Whilst that paints a bleak picture, Taroona have certainly been better of late as they have welcomed some players back to the side. They managed to win their way through to this stage by beating a pair of sides from the lower divisions and they also beat Olympia in the league. A 5-0 loss to South Hobart in their most recent start suggests there still remains a fair gap between them and the best WSL sides though, which Launceston United certainly are.
I’m not a big believer in the concept of week to week momentum boosting sides chances, every 90 minutes starts afresh after all, but there is no doubt that Launceston United have to be feeling exceedingly good about themselves at this minute after their victory last weekend. Rallying back from 3-1 down to down the defending Champion Zebras 5-4 and maintaining their perfect start to the league season was a massive performance. This week it’s a very different assignment facing them because the expectation is firmly on them to win the game, which brings with it a different set of pressures.
The Pirates best hope here might well be their home ground advantage. Kelvedon Park is notorious for becoming very heavy in the wintertime and given the weather of late it won’t be the slickest surface facing the players that’s for certain. That advantages the side without possession and it can make sides who dig in defensively quite tough to break down given it tends to lead to heavier touches on the ball. So perhaps Taroona can park the Pirate ship in front of their net and try and frustrate United before picking something up on the counter, or via a long-range hit from Holly Ayton. They enter the game as massive underdogs, but that can also be liberating, they have nothing to lose here, but potentially everything to gain. All the pressure and expectations rest on the visitors.
Lakoseljac Cup
Devonport v Kingborough, Valley Road, 2:30pm
Olympia v South Hobart, Empire Couriers Park, 6:30pm
Women’s Statewide Cup
Kingborough v Devonport, Clennett’s Lightwood Park, 1:00pm
Taroona v Launceston United, Kelvedon Park, 2:00pm