Newcastle Olympic were unable to win the 2026 Reserve Grade Grand Final played at Darling St Oval, going down 2-1 to Maitland FC! Olympic had a disastrous first half and a much improved second but was unable to score and repair the damage done in the first half.
Olympics’ problems were evident from the starting line up in which certain players were asked to play positions strange to them while others who started games were left on the bench! Despite this odd setting out of the personnel of the team it was Olympic who drew blood first when Lucas Walshe crossed from the left and Kane Treble unleashed a great volley to record a 1-0 lead.
After this, the problems of Olympic in the middle of the park became apparent as Maitland capitalized on the absence of a defensive midfield player who could win the ball. The magpies had complete control of the middle and of possession and were probing the Olympic defense at will.
Within 3 minutes of falling behind they carved up the best defense in the competition to score a beautiful equalizer in the 9th minute! They then continued to dominate possession and of attacking moves putting the Olympic defense under enormous pressure. During one such attacking raid in the 28th minute the Olympic goalkeeper fouled a Maitland forward inside the box and the referee was left with no option but to award a penalty. Maitland converted the penalty and with a 2-1 lead, spent the remaining 15 minutes trying to add a third goal by half time. Fortunately for Olympic they didn’t!
With the start of the second half Olympic made no changes and Maitland continued to dominate play. This is from a team which lost both games to Olympic during the season and ended up 13 points behind Olympic on the points table! It wasn’t until the 55th minute when Nikolai Zervas and George Tsamouras entered the game that things began to improve. With Zervas taking up his customary role in attack and Tsamouras his No6 position in midfield, player roles were also switched around internally! The result was a change in play during which Olympic took complete control of possession!
It was during the ensuing 20 minutes of complete control by Olympic that the absence of injured Jess Fitzgerald in attack was most obvious. Despite the possession and the waves of attacks on the Maitland goal, the potency of Olympics’ leading goal scorer was missing! Maitland weathered the storm and took the steam out of the game in the last 10 minutes with players getting “injured” to chew up the clock!
Congratulations are deserved by the Maitland players for putting up such a fight and winning the game as they are also deserved by the Olympic players who gave everything they had. Olympic were using the wrong players in the wrong positions in the first half and when they corrected this in the second, it was too little too late!
Source: Tom Tsamouras
George Tsamouras Football Journey 