As he has so often done before for Canberra Croatia on the big stage, perennial Grand Final hero Thomas James’s performance on Saturday proved to be instrumental in delivering another piece of silverware to the club’s illustrious cabinet.
With Tigers FC holding a 3-1 lead on 53 minutes, the potential for a second consecutive championship for Croatia looked out of the question, however James’ all action showing saw the number 18 claw his side back level, after providing the assist for his side’s second goal, and winning the penalty that Daniel Barac squared things with on 94 minutes.
It wasn’t the first time James has been the club’s talisman on the Grand Final stage, having memorably scored a double back in 2018 to earn a 2-1 victory against Canberra Olympic.
“I believe I won it before a few years ago, but this was a bit more of an all-rounded performance in terms of work ethic, I didn’t score but I thought I created enough and caused a lot of damage,” he commented.
Considering the enormity of the Grand Final stage, the squad’s ability to come back from a 3-1 deficit having been second-best for a significant period of the game, is a credit to what James says was the strength of the Croatia squad, and his side’s mentality.
“To be fair Tigers took it to us but I think they scored one decent goal and we conceded two bad goals,” the forward said. “We just stuck with the game plan, hard work and belief got us there in the end.”
“There’s lots of quality in our team, there’s a lot of young boys, they’re all quality, a few of them are going to A-League now, so yeah belief, quality, hard work, when you put all those things together, there’s not much that can go wrong to be honest.”
Having endured a poor start to the season, James says that the transformation achieved by his Croatia side throughout 2024 unquestionably merited a Grand Final trophy, and credits the belief and hard work conjured in Saturday’s match, and in the season overall to the return of Head Coach Dean Ugrinic.
“We definitely deserved to be in the Grand Final, we were second last I think after the first round and then the last two rounds we strung a lot of performances together and we were right up there,” he said. “[The] start of the season was a bit difficult under the previous coach, I don’t know what happened there with him coming in, then I went away overseas for six weeks, but I know Dean from previously, he’s brought the boys together and got us playing a way and working a lot harder than what the previous coach did.”
Having freshened up the squad with an infusion of young talent in 2024, Croatia has yet again proven their almost instinctual knack for winning trophies, despite losing some key contributors in 2023.
Overall, James says the success they have achieved bodes well for the coming campaigns.
“If you’re at this club that’s the goal, you’ve got to win trophies,” he explained. “There’s a lot of young boys here and this will do them good for the future.”
(Words: Sam Watson)
