And that proved to be the case throughout the contest. <\/p>\n
The Jets, who made a slow start to the regular season before a rampant finish, needed a last-ditch equaliser from Eli Adams to force extra time. His strike five minutes into added time at the end of the second half cancelled out the 63rd-minute effort of Sydney\u2019s Piero Quispe.<\/p>\n
And with no one able to find a winner in 30 minutes of extra time, the side headed to the penalty spot to decide it. <\/p>\n
Both goalkeepers started penalties in the best way, each saving the first attempt taken at them. <\/p>\n
But when Harrison Devenish-Meares saved the shot of Xavier Bertoncello, Ben Garuccio stepped up to kick the Sky Blues into the big dance. <\/p>\n
Speaking on the broadcast after slotting his penalty, Garuccio praised the fans of both sides before noting what his side would be in for in the grand final.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole spectacle. Best fans in the league over there, but Newcastle as well. It was such an amazing atmosphere and this is the benchmark for Australian football,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure next week\u2019s going to be no different. Auckland\u2019s had big crowds since they\u2019ve come in. Now they finally get to the big dance, we\u2019re back there, it\u2019s going to be massive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newcastle suffered the same fate as Auckland FC did last year, being eliminated in the semi-finals despite home-field advantage after being the top-ranked team in the regular season. <\/p>\n
The grand final will be held at Go Media Stadium on Saturday May 23. Kick-off is at 8.10pm NZT. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And that proved to be the case throughout the contest. The Jets, who made a slow start to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4878,13280,4544,13282,13281,4545,4868,9319,12665,3936,247,3108],"class_list":{"0":"post-12570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sydney","8":"tag-aleague","9":"tag-as","10":"tag-auckland","11":"tag-coming","12":"tag-eliminate","13":"tag-fc","14":"tag-final","15":"tag-grand","16":"tag-host","17":"tag-newcastle","18":"tag-sydney","19":"tag-to"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}