Late goal ends Wanderers Australia Cup campaign, Heller happy with play

While disappointed the campaign has come to an end, coach Andy Heller is pleased with how his team played on the night.

The Griffith-based side play a league above the Wanderers, and though favourites heading into the game, only narrowly held on.

Neither team had scored by half time, but an early push from Yoogali had them up for most of the second half.

An 85^th minute equaliser had spectators preparing for extra time, but a scrambling 91^st minute goal secured Yoogali the win.

Heller said it was an impressive performance from his young side.

"I was happy in general, it's a local derby, there's always raised tensions and expectations on those kinds of games, but for us it was a chance to play our local rivals who have been promoted and are playing at a high level, and to challenge ourselves accordingly," Heller said.

Impressed with how well his young side held their shape across the field both while attacking and defending, the Wanderers stepped up to the challenge and played their roles as asked.

Alongside Heller comes a near all-new team, with an abundance of youth.

He said the decrease in median age across the squad is a reflection of the hard work of coaches before him.

"I think we've got something really exciting happening with everyone there this year, and we've been able to use the products of the system," Heller said.

"The junior coaches before me have developed fantastic players and now I can mould them into playing senior football."

Despite Tuesday's loss, and their 3-1 loss to Belconnen in round two of the Capital Premier League, Heller is feeling confident in how the team is shaping up.

Still early in the season, capitalising on the opportunities they make themselves will be a focus moving forward.

Pleased with how the side has created scoring chances in recent games, they have struggled to find the net.

"We haven't had that game yet where we've really put somebody to bed," he said.

"Yesterday was never going to be the game where that was going to happen, but we scored a fantastic goal, we created lots of opportunities, but we didn't have lots of clear cut opportunities.

"Against Belconnen, we had four or five times we were one-on-one with the goalkeeper and didn't finish that off, and we got punished for that by a bit of quality from them.

"We need to be mindful going forward into future games, when we're playing at this level we need to be more clinical, defensively we're really strong, going forward we create a real handful [of chances] but you lose games if you don't put the ball in the back of the net."

Wanderers are back on the road this weekend to play ANU in Canberra.

With a huge talent pool to pull from, Heller is anticipating a strong, competitive game.

The Wanderers also await confirmation on the time and date of their Riverina Cup final, after Tolland were successful in booking their grand final start.