Elimination Final
Lambton Jaffas 3-1 Maitland FC
Lambton Jaffas boss David Tanchevski commended his players’ bravery after they defeated Maitland FC 3-1 on Sunday afternoon to progress to week two of the 2025 finals series.
The Jaffas had a well-documented poor start to the season but have well and truly overcome that across the last five weeks, during which they have won six games and are undefeated in seven.
While the driving force behind their fifth consecutive trip to the finals has been their defence this year, Tanchevski challenged his men to show what they were made of in attack and they have risen to that challenge to cement themselves as one of the four remaining teams in the championship hunt.
“It’s been a big run for us. We struggled during the first half of the season but we’ve come home strong and we’re seven games unbeaten,” Tanchevski said.
“It’s the polar opposite to last year when we lost four of our last six and went straight out in the finals.
“We’ve got some good momentum and the boys are playing some really good football.
“Over the last six or seven games, we’ve decided to be a bit braver. We’ve been focusing a bit more on our attack than our defence. We had our defence right during the first half of the season but we needed more goals. I think now the boys are playing with more confidence and they’re playing braver and we’re getting results.
“The crowd was really good today. Our Old Boys’ Day got cancelled because we had to go over and play that game at Speers Point, so it was good to earn a home semi-final and finish off our last home game for the year with a win for our fans. It was excellent.
“There are three other really good teams left, who I think have been standouts above everyone else this year in Magic, Edgy and Weston. Whoever we have to play next week will be a hard game but our boys on their day can compete with any team and over the back-half of the season we’ve showed that.”
The finals series exploded to life on Sunday when Maitland and Lambton netted inside the opening seven minutes at Arthur Edden Oval.
Maitland’s Aden Gage Raftery knocked a free kick into the penalty area in the third minute that deflected to teammate Isaac Collins for a close-range header to open the scoring. Before Lambton’s Tom Waller equalised with a screamer from distance into the bottom-left corner just four minutes later.
The Jaffas suffered a blow in the 40th minute when Jimmy Oates was forced from the field with a hamstring injury that required scans on Monday and could see his campaign end abruptly.
But the Jaffas were able to shrug that off and take their first lead of the game three minutes later when Pat Bond produced a stunning strike from outside the penalty area that struck the underside of the crossbar and bounced into the back of the net to give the Jaffas a 2-1 advantage at the break.
The hosts doubled their lead two minutes into the second half when a Waller strike was tapped home by Archie Finn from close range and the Jaffas were good enough to keep Maitland out and prevail 3-1.
While the Jaffas will now go on to challenge Edgeworth Eagles in the minor semi-final on Saturday, Maitland’s season has now come to an end.
The 2025 campaign was a success for the Magpies in Adam Hughes’ first year as head coach of the club as they returned to the finals following a ninth-placed finish in 2024.
Like the Jaffas, Maitland improved significantly during the second half of the season and they look likely to be one of the teams to beat in 2026.
Qualifying Final
Edgeworth Eagles 1-2 Weston Bears
Weston Bears assistant coach Nathan Morris said a stern half-time team talk did wonders as his side scored a come-from-behind 2-1 victory over Edgeworth at Lake Macquarie Regional Football Facility on Monday night.
In a match that was initially scheduled to be played at Jack McLaughlan Oval but was abandoned on Saturday and then relocated on Monday due to wet weather, the Eagles struck with an early goal on the synthetic pitch and led 1-0 at the break before the Bears clawed their way back in the second half.
Brock Beveridge was brought off the bench for the second half and changed the game as he bagged a brace and provided plenty of energy to help his side get the job done.
The victory was Weston’s fourth over Peter McGuinness’ men in all competitions in 2025 and leaves them one win away from a return to the grand final for the first time since 2014.
However, Morris declared that his men would need to be much better during the remainder of the finals series than they were in the first half on Monday night.
“That substitution at half-time stemmed from the way we were playing, unfortunately. It was a less-than-ideal first half from us,” Morris said.
“It just wasn’t good enough. Everything that we’re about and everything that we train to do and the style that we play just wasn’t there. We are a passing team and everything we do, we like to do quickly and move teams around but we just didn’t move the ball and we couldn’t shift more than three passes together.
“Players held onto the ball too long and we went long instead of keeping it on the deck. Going long on that greasy pitch was never going to work.
“To Edgeworth’s credit, they were hungrier than us. They won all of the first or second balls. They started well and were really good and even when they went down to 10 men, they continued to play out and press.
“We didn’t help ourselves with the way we played in the first half. The effort was there though. The effort is always there with our group.
“There was a fairly animated team talk at half-time from [head coach Kew Jaliens] about how hard we’d worked to get in the position we were in and how we were throwing it away by playing the way we were playing.
“It was a team talk that hasn’t happened in a long time. It was definitely stern, I’ll put it that way. That’s the beauty of Kew though. He’s played at the highest level against unbelievable world-class players, so when he’s upset and has something to say, you can hear a pin drop.
“Thank goodness we started well in the second half and got the goal to level the playing field. Then we ground them down after that.”
Flynn Goodman brought the game to life in the sixth minute on Monday night when the Edgeworth striker beat Bears skipper Chris Hurley in the penalty area before being denied three times as he forced a double save out of goalkeeper Gerard Roebuck and a goal line clearance from Dom Archbold.
The Eagles were reduced to 10 men in the ninth minute when Xander Woweries brought down Chris Hatfield just outside the penalty area after the Weston striker had charged in behind from a Cooper Buswell pass, with the referee and his assistant referee convening and deciding the illegal tackle had denied an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.
But Edgeworth were determined not to let that derail the contest for them and they took the lead in the 16th minute when Goodman controlled an Aaron Oppedisano cross from the right and picked out the bottom-left corner with his strike from just inside the penalty area.
Weston started to get themselves on top towards the end of the first half as they looked to make their extra man advantage count but they were unable to find a goal before the break as the Eagles went into half-time leading 1-0.
The turning point of the contest came during the half-time break when Jaliens elected to make a substitute that would soon turn the game on its head. Beveridge was the player he injected and the attacking weapon equalised just six minutes after play restarted with a cracking strike from close range after getting onto the end of a Dom Archbold cross from the left.
The striker continued to provide headaches for the Eagles’ defence as he got himself in position for three more opportunities in the penalty area within the next five minutes, two that he really should have scored, but it remained 1-1 as the hour-mark approached.
There was no stopping Beveridge in the 73rd minute though as he unleashed a stunning volley from just outside the penalty area that soared over Ben Conway and dipped in just under the crossbar to put Weston in front for the first time in the match.
It was a lead they held for the final 22 minutes as Edgeworth were unable to find an equaliser and take the contest into extra time.
The Bears have now turned their attention to Sunday’s major semi-final clash with defending champions and 2025 premiers Broadmeadow Magic at Magic Park, with a spot in the September 7 grand final on the line.
Edgeworth on the other hand will now meet Lambton Jaffas in the minor semi-final this weekend. The loser of that game will be eliminated from the finals series.
Both of this weekend’s fixtures could be relocated to Lake Macquarie Regional Football Facility if wet weather washes out the major semi-final at Magic Park or the minor semi-final at Jack McLaughlan Oval.
