“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Brisbane Roar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jordan Lauton is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Aaron Wright left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Brisbane Roar told Jordan Lauton something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Youstin Salas’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Brisbane Roar needing him to play as if none of it matters.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nick D'Agostino provided it, and the 8.67 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.12 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
A 3‑1 win over Sydney FC, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Jordan Lauton falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The goal that put Sydney FC ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Brisbane Roar equalised, 1 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Aaron Wright kept it short after the 3‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Lachlan Wales falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Joel Anasmo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Sydney FC next, and one man in the Brisbane Roar dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Next up on the road: Sydney FC, position 4. The supporters who go will talk about it all week and the ones who do not will check their phones at ten to five.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Brisbane Roar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Two goals and a mark of 8.36 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Lachlan Wales was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jay O'Shea. 3‑1 against Adelaide United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Brisbane Roar can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Brisbane Roar the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Jay O'Shea
SquadJay O'Shea is training like a man with a point to make
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Tottenham keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Brisbane Roar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jay O'Shea is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Dimitris Valkanis and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Andriano Lebib is 20, and Brisbane Roar have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Ben Warland has agreed terms with Sydney FC for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Lachlan Wales was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Jay O'Shea falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Brisbane Roar asked and Melbourne City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Brisbane Roar can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Brisbane Roar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Brisbane Roar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jay O'Shea is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Brisbane Roar asked and Portsmouth said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.