2023 National Premier Leagues NSW

NPL NSW Men's

Season	2023
Dates	3 February 2023 – 27 August 2023
Champions	APIA Leichhardt
Matches played	96
Goals scored	304 (3.17 per match)
Top goalscorer	Alec Urosevski (27 goals)
Biggest home win	APIA Leichhardt 6–0 Rockdale Ilinden (12 February 2023)
Biggest away win	Wollongong Wolves 0–4 Marconi (17 February 2023) Western Sydney Wanderers 0–4 Marconi (1 April 2023)
Highest scoring	NWS Spirit 5–4 Wollongong Wolves (1 April 2023) Marconi Stallions 5–4 Central Coast Mariners (27 August 2023)
Longest winning run	8 matches Rockdale Ilinden
Longest unbeaten run	12 matches APIA Leichhardt
Longest winless run	10 matches Northbridge Bulls
Longest losing run	4 matches Western Sydney Wanderers Sydney Olympic Central Coast Mariners
← 2022 2024 → All statistics correct as of 5 May 2023.

The 2023 NPL NSW Men's is the eleventh season of soccer in New South Wales under the banner of the National Premier Leagues and the first season under the revised competition format. The season began on 3 February 2023 and is scheduled to conclude on 27 August.

Sydney Olympic are the defending premiers and Blacktown City are the defending champions.

Promotion and relegation

Teams promoted from the 2022 NSW League One

• Central Coast Mariners Academy
• St George City
• Western Sydney Wanderers Youth
• NWS Spirit FC

Stadiums and locations

Team	Head Coach	Location	Stadium	Capacity
APIA Leichhardt	Franco Parisi [1]	Leichhardt	Lambert Park	7,000
Blacktown City	Mark Crittenden [2]	Blacktown	Blacktown City Sports Centre	7,500
Bulls FC Academy	Zeljko Kalac [3]	Northbridge	Sydney United Sports Centre	12,000
Central Coast Mariners Academy	Abbas Saad [4]	Gosford	Pluim Park	2,000
Mt Druitt Rangers	Stewart Montgomery [5]	Mount Druitt	Popondetta Park	2,500
Marconi Stallions	Peter Tsekenis [6]	Fairfield	Marconi Stadium	9,000
Manly United	Patrick Zwaanswijk [7]	Dee Why	Cromer Park	5,000
NWS Spirit FC	David Perkovic [8]	North Sydney	Christie Park	1,000
Rockdale Ilinden	Paul Dee [9] [10]	Rockdale	Rockdale Ilinden Sports Centre	5,000
Sydney FC Youth	Jimmy Van Weeren [11]	Moore Park	Valentine Sports Park	4,000
Sydney Olympic	Labinot Haliti [12] [13]	Belmore	Belmore Sports Ground	20,000
Sutherland Sharks	Damir Prodanovic [14]	Sutherland	Seymour Shaw Park	5,000
St George City	Mirko Jurilj [15] [16]	St George	Peakhurst Park	1,000
Sydney United	Miro Vlastelica [17]	Edensor Park	Sydney United Sports Centre	12,000
Western Sydney Wanderers Youth	Andrew Christiansen [18]	Blacktown	Wanderers Football Park	4,500
Wollongong Wolves	David Carney [19]	Wollongong	WIN Stadium	22,000

Managerial changes

Team	Outgoing manager	Manner of departure	Date of vacancy	Position in table	Incoming manager	Date of appointment
Bulls FC Academy	Mile Sterjovski	Promoted to full time	23 January 2023 [20]	Pre-season	Zeljko Kalac	28 January 2023 [21]
CCM Academy	Luke Wilkshire	Signed by Socceroos	14 February 2023 [22]	12th	Lucas Vilela (interim)	17 February 2023 [23]
CCM Academy	Lucas Vilela (interim)	End of caretaker spell	24 February 2023	13th	Abbas Saad	25 February 2023 [24]

Foreign players

Team	Visa 1	Visa 2	Non-visa foreigner(s)	Former players
APIA Leichhardt	Florent Indalecio	Jason Romero		Diego Celis
Blacktown City	Charles Mendy	Tatsuya Kato	Danny Choi 1	Mitchell Mallia 2
Bulls FC Academy
CCM Academy			Zac Zoricich 2
Mt Druitt Rangers	Júnior Sena	Kotaro Katsuta
Marconi Stallions	Hiroaki Aoyama
Manly United	Seiya Kambayashi	Bruno Mendes	Marcus Lal 2
NWS Spirit FC	Kôta Odakura	Luiz Lobo	Musashi Kokubo 2
Rockdale Ilinden	Diego Celis	Loïc Puyo	Nicola Kuleski 2 Iain Ramsay 2
Sydney FC Youth
Sydney Olympic	Ziggy Gordon	Fábio Ferreira	Roy O'Donovan 1
Sutherland Sharks	Takahide Umebachi		Fumoto Kamada 2
St George City	Pedro Ferrari	Franco Maya
Sydney United	Taisei Kaneko		Leroy Jennings 2
Western Sydney Wanderers Youth
Wollongong Wolves	Banri Kanaizumi	Takumi Ofuka	Chris McStay 1

The following do not fill a Visa position:
¹Those players who were born and started their professional career abroad but have since gained Australian citizenship
²Australian citizens who have chosen to represent another national team;

Regular season

The 2023 season is a double round-robin format, with each team playing 30 games. The season started on 3 February, and is scheduled to conclude on 27 August. ^[25]

Table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	APIA Leichhardt (C)	30	20	5	5	64	35	+29	65
2	Rockdale Ilinden	30	18	5	7	60	45	+15	59
3	Blacktown City	30	17	6	7	59	33	+26	57
4	Marconi Stallions	30	17	5	8	64	35	+29	56
5	St George City	30	14	9	7	62	40	+22	51
6	Sydney FC Youth	30	14	4	12	49	52	−3	46
7	Wollongong Wolves	30	11	10	9	57	43	+14	43
8	Manly United	30	12	6	12	41	43	−2	42
9	Sydney Olympic	30	10	9	11	51	53	−2	39
10	Sydney United	30	11	6	13	42	48	−6	39
11	NWS Spirit	30	11	6	13	40	53	−13	39
12	Central Coast Mariners Academy	30	9	6	15	42	57	−15	33
13	Western Sydney Wanderers Youth	30	8	7	15	52	61	−9	31
14	Sutherland Sharks	30	8	7	15	21	35	−14	31
15	Mt Druitt Town Rangers (R)	30	6	5	19	31	61	−30	23	Qualification to Relegation play-off
16	Bulls FC Academy (R)	30	3	6	21	24	65	−41	15	Relegation to 2024 NSW League One

Source: Ladder
Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Goal difference; 3) Number of goals scored; 4) Points gained in head-to-head record between teams; 5) Number of goals scored in head-to-head record between teams; 6) Play-off if teams concerned are equal on the basis of the above criteria
(C) Champions; (R) Relegated

Fixtures and results

Home \ Away	APT	BCT	BUL	CCM	MAN	MAR	MTR	NWS	ROC	SOL	STC	SUD	SUT	SYD	WSW	WOL
APIA Leichhardt	—		2–2	1–0	3–1	0–0	2–0	5–0	6–0	3–0		1–2	1–0		2–1	3–0
Blacktown City	2–4	—	4–1	4–1		3–1	4–1	1–2	1–2	5–1			2–0	3–0	0–0
Bull FC	1–2		—	1–1		1–4	1–3	1–2	2–1	1–3	0–0	0–1	1–2	1–1		1–1
CCM Academy	1–2	0–1	4–2	—		2–0	1–4	4–2		2–2		2–1	2–2	2–1	1–3	2–2
Manly United		0–2	3–2	2–0	—	1–1	2–0	0–2	2–2	1–3	2–0	2–1		2–1		0–3
Marconi Stallions	1–1	2–0			3–1	—			3–1		2–3	2–1	0–2	5–0	3–3	1–0
Mt Druitt Town Rangers	1–2	0–2	2–1	1–2	1–2		—	0–0	0–3	1–1	0–3	1–0	1–2	1–2	2–1
NWS Spirit		3–2	2–0	0–1	1–3	0–2	3–1	—	0–1	0–0	2–2		2–2	1–0	1–0	5–4
Rockdale Ilinden	1–2				2–0		1–0		—	3–1	2–2	3–1	2–0	4–2	5–1	0–4
Sydney Olympic		1–3	1–0	1–3	2–2	2–4		1–1	0–2	—	0–0		3–0	1–2	3–1	2–2
St George City	1–2	2–2	4–1	1–1	1–1	0–2		3–0	3–4	1–0	—	0–1		3–4	4–2	5–3
Sydney United	1–3	1–0	0–0		2–0	3–1		2–2	3–3	0–1		—	2–1	0–1	3–6
Sutherland Sharks	0–1	0–1		0–0	1–0	0–0		1–0	0–1	1–0	0–2	0–0	—	0–0		0–3
Sydney FC Youth	4–0	1–0	4–1	3–1	2–1	1–2	4–2			2–3	2–2	1–0		—	0–1	2–1
WSW Youth	2–2	2–3	0–1	1–2	2–1	0–4			3–3	3–2	1–2	3–4	0–1		—	2–2
Wollongong Wolves	2–2	0–0	2–0			0–4	0–0	2–1	1–3		1–2	0–0	2–0			—

Updated to match(es) played on 3 February 2023. Source: footballnsw.com.au
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.
For upcoming matches, an "a" indicates there is an article about the rivalry between the two participants.

Festival of Football

The third edition of the Festival of Football was played on 23 April, featuring Inner West rivals and former NSL clubs APIA Leichhardt and Sydney Olympic with their playing against each other. ^[26] This featured youth, women's and men's matches. Additionally, a legends match was also included, which featured former players such as Ernie Campbell, Marshall Soper, Jean-Paul de Marigny, Milan Blagojevic, John Buonavoglia, Nick Rizzo, Mark Byrnes, Robert Younis, Peter Katholos, Pablo Cardozo, Robbie Hooker, Zlatko Nastevski and Paul Henderson. ^[27]

The feature match was the Men's NPL match, part of Round 12 of the National Premier Leagues NSW. ^[28] Coming into the match APIA had won all eleven previous league matches.

23 April 2023 (2023-04-23)

18:00 AEST

APIA Leichhardt	3–0	Sydney Olympic
Armson 58' S.Symons 72', 84'	Report

Lambert Park , Leichhardt

Attendance: 4,123

Referee: Craig Fisher

Relegation play-offs

All times are AEST (UTC+10).

First leg

3 September 2023 (2023-9-3)

15:00

St George FC	1–1	Mt Druitt Town
Jones 23'	Report	Djordjevic 34'

Rockdale Ilinden Sports Centre, Rockdale

Second leg

9 September 2023 (2023-9-9)

14:30

Mt Druitt Town	0–1	St George FC
	Report	Spang 8'

Popondetta Park, Emerton

St George FC won 2–1 on aggregate. Therefore, St George are promoted to the NSW NPL, while Mt Druitt Town are relegated to the FNSW League One.

Regular season statistics

Top scorers

Rank	Player	Club	Goals [29]
1	Alec Urosevski	Rockdale Ilinden	27
2	Roy O'Donovan	Sydney Olympic	18
3	Jak O'Brien	Blacktown City	17
4	Jordan Swibel	Marconi Stallions	15
5	Jack Armson	APIA Leichhardt	14
	Jack Stewart	APIA Leichhardt
	Patrick Antelmi	Sydney United
8	Lachlan Scott	Wollongong Wolves	13
9	Christopher Payne	Sydney United	11
	Presley Ortiz	St George City
	Travis Major	Blacktown City

Hat-tricks

Player	For	Against	Result	Date	Ref.
Jason Romero 4	APIA Leichhardt FC	Rockdale Ilinden FC	6–0 (H)	12 February 2023	[30]
Jak O'Brien	Blacktown City FC	Mt Druitt Town Rangers FC	4–1 (H)	5 March 2023	[31]
Sean Symons	APIA Leichhardt FC	NWS Spirit FC	5–0 (H)	6 May 2023	[32]
Harry McCarthy	Manly United FC	APIA Leichhardt FC	4–0 (H)	22 July 2023	[33]

Notes

• ⁴ Player scored 4 goals
• (H) – Home team
• (A) – Away team

See also

• 2023 National Premier Leagues

References

1. "APIA hoping to turn heads in 2023". Football NSW. 14 December 2022. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
2. "Familiar faces ready to go as Blacktown City hunt for more success". Football NSW. 13 December 2022. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
3. "Bulls FC Academy prepare for busy 2023 season". Football NSW. 12 December 2022. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
4. "Youthful Central Coast Mariners keen to make their mark in 2023". Football NSW. 18 December 2022. Retrieved 18 December 2022.
5. "The only way is up for the Mt Druitt Town Rangers". Football NSW. 17 December 2022. Retrieved 17 December 2022.
6. "Stallions set to unleash fury in 2023". Football NSW. 13 December 2022. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
7. "Manly United set to promote local talent once more in 2023". Football NSW. 9 December 2022. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
8. "New boys on the block NWS Spirit ready for big league in 2023". Football NSW. 14 December 2022. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
9. "Full steam ahead for hungry Ilinden". Football NSW. 16 December 2022. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
10. "Rockdale Ilinden appoint Paul Dee as new Head Coach". Football NSW. 1 August 2022. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
11. "Sydney FC ready to unearth more young guns in 2023". Football NSW. 12 December 2022. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
12. "Haliti prepping his Sydney Olympic troops for a huge year". Football NSW. 16 December 2022. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
13. "Sydney Olympic FC appoint A-League alum Labinot Haliti as new head coach". The Greek Herald. 19 October 2022. Retrieved 19 October 2022.
14. "Sutherland Sharks prepare for new era". Football NSW. 18 December 2022. Retrieved 18 December 2022.
15. "St George City building for a big 2023 season". Football NSW. 16 December 2022. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
16. "1st grade coach announcement St George City FA". St George City FA. 20 March 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
17. "Sydney United 58 focused on premiership push in 2023". Football NSW. 17 December 2022. Retrieved 17 December 2022.
18. "Western Sydney Wanderers ready for the big league". Football NSW. 17 December 2022. Retrieved 17 December 2022.
19. "Wolves ready for the David Carney era". Football NSW. 11 December 2022. Retrieved 11 December 2022.
20. Chadwick, Justin (23 January 2023). "Sterjovski unveiled as Macarthur ALM coach". The West Australian .
21. Stavroulakis, Mark (28 January 2023). "Zeljko Kalac appointed Bulls FC Academy Head Coach". Football NSW.
22. Bartlett, Joshua (14 February 2023). "Luke Wilkshire departs Mariners joins Socceroos coaching staff". Illawarra Mercury .
23. Stavroulakis, Mark (17 February 2023). "Central Coast Mariners appoint interim coaches". Football NSW.
24. "Mariners appoint former NPL1 champion and ex-Socceroo Abbas Saad". Central Coast Mariners. 25 February 2023. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
25. Stavroulakis, Mark (20 December 2022). "OFFICIAL: FOOTBALL NSW 2023 MATCH SCHEDULES ANNOUNCED". Football NSW.
26. "Festival of Football an example to follow according to Raciti". NPL NSW Men's. Football NSW. 16 April 2023.
27. Stavroulakis, Mark (20 April 2023). "Legends game set to ignite Festival of Football this Sunday". NPL NSW Men's.
28. "APIA Leichhardt regain top spot after solid win over Olympic". NPL NSW Men's. Football NSW. 23 April 2023.
29. "NPL Mens 1st Grade - Top Goal Scorers". Football NSW. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
30. "Ilinden smashed by ruthless APIA". Football NSW. 12 February 2023. Retrieved 12 February 2023.
31. "O'Brien hat-trick sinks Rangers". NPL NSW Men's. Football NSW. 5 March 2023.
32. "NWS Spirit FC spanked by ruthless APIA". NPL NSW Men's. Football NSW. 6 May 2023.
33. "Manly United thump League Leaders APIA". NPL NSW Men's. Football NSW. 22 July 2023.