Port Melbourne Sharks are looking to create further club history this afternoon, when they venture to the Reggio Calabria Club in Brunswick, to take on Avondale FC in an NPL elimination final.

Having qualified some weeks back for their first ever national round of 32 in the FFA Cup, the Sharks followed up by qualifying for their first ever NPL finals beginning this weekend, courtesy of a tense drama filled final round 1-0 win over local rivals South Melbourne FC at Lakeside last Sunday.

“It was a bit of relief because we probably should have qualified earlier but left it late,” Sharks’ senior coach Adam Piddick told Neos Kosmos. “But also it was with great satisfaction that we qualified, beating our fellow Greek club in a local derby on the final day of the season.”

Port’s win over South ended a recent lean spell for the Sharks in which they were winless for five matches, affected in large part by the loss of key players to injury and overseas travel due to personal family reasons.

“Having a small squad, we were relying on playing players out of position,” Piddick says.

In contrast, Avondale finished the home and away season with a full head of steam, having lost just one of its previous ten matches.

“Obviously [Avondale is] probably the form team of the competition at the moment,” Piddick says. “They’ve got players all over the park that can hurt you.

“In attack, Kaine Sheppard, Liam Boland, Elvis Kamsoba and Joey Katebian, give Avondale multiple avenues to goal.

“They’re good going forward, in transition or through set pieces. Quite strong defensively, [they] probably got the best keeper in the league, Chris Oldfield. All very experienced, [they] played finals football. All round it’s a tough task,” Piddick says.


In contrast, the Sharks are relatively inexperienced at finals football.

“You can say we’re going into the game without that experience but in saying that, we’re going into it with no fear as well,” Piddick says.

It’s fair to say the Sharks are the underdogs going into today’s final. Expectations will be high on Avondale to push all the way for a place in the grand final, having fallen at the first hurdle of last season’s final series. A loss at home today against the Sharks would be considered a failure.

Piddick commented on the contrasting expectations on the two clubs going into the elimination final:

“I think those expectations come out from the football community, not from us as a playing group. Our expectations as a playing group is to be the best. Our expectations are still high. If we don’t perform on the weekend and we go out, the boys will be very disappointed. So I think the expectation on that is probably from outside our group which is something we can’t control.

“But if you step back and look at it, Avondale have got a bigger budget and more ready made players, so they’re probably feeling the expectations from the football community. And I’m sure within their group, they’ll want to be the best as well, and they believe they can win it. And we can do the same. There’s no reason why we’re going to sit back and let them go at us. We’ve already been to Avondale this year and beaten them, and there’s no reason why we can’t do it again.”