Our 2026 report card, and our plan for what comes next
A year ago we published our Football Plan: what we want to achieve by 2028, every target with the season it’s due, and a promise to tell you each season how we’re going. Today we’re keeping that promise.
Our 2026 report card grades every men’s, boys’ and whole-club target in the plan, the results we’re proud of and the ones that weren’t good enough. Alongside it, we’ve published the refined plan, with women’s and girls’ football in it from 2027.
The result we value most
Of everything in the report card, one result means the most to us, because it came from you. Every year our Club & Coach Survey asks our families how likely they are to recommend the Sharks, and the Net Promoter Score turns their answers into one number, from −100 to +100.
In 2024, as our new leadership team took over, that score was −12. Last year it was +47. This year you gave us +74, a score considered world class, and past the target our plan set for the end of 2027, a year early.
Year one, on the pitch and off it
- Men’s First Grade finished fourth in NPL NSW Men’s, our highest finish since 2013, then played our first finals in over 13 years and earned our first place in the Australian Championship.
- Five of our U20s made their Men’s First Grade debuts, and 10 of this season’s 22 players were homegrown, one short of half.
- Our five Boys Youth League teams finished second in League Two’s club championship, behind Wollongong.
- You came with us: more than 32,000 of you through the gates at Men’s First Grade’s home games, and Seymour Shaw’s attendance record broken again and again, most recently with 3,266 against South Melbourne.
- We handed out more than 11,000 free community passes to the SSFA’s clubs.
- In May we launched the Sharks Foundation: you raised $57,493 on its first night, and its scholarships now cover players’ registration, so a family’s budget never decides who wears our badge.
- Two of our Mixed JDL and Boys Youth League players signed with A-League academies for 2027.
Where we fell short
A report card that only shows what went well isn’t a report card, so ours is open about where we fell short. Your answers told us squad selection needs to be clearer, our Technical Directors more visible and our coaching more consistent from team to team. And we didn’t get our players and coaches out to the Shire’s community clubs, or a player into a Football NSW or national team squad.
Each has a plan behind it for 2027, from review meetings with every family to more of our Technical Directors at training and on match days, and the report card sets them all out. Next year’s will tell you whether they’re working.
What’s new in the plan
Our goal for 2028 hasn’t changed: the Sharks back at the top, with players from our own pathways and the Shire leading the way. What’s new is that the plan now covers men’s and women’s football together.
- Women’s and girls’ football joins in 2027. In July we signed a two-year MOU with the SSFA: from 2027 the Sharks operationally manage the Shire’s girls’ and women’s representative pathway, with the SSFA holding its licence. It runs in two phases: Connect & transition in 2027, then Develop & demonstrate in 2028.
- New goals for our women and girls. Women’s First Grade’s promotion to NPL 1 NSW Women’s within its first two seasons; a place for Girls Youth League in Girls’ Youth League One at the next available opportunity; and One Connected Pathway, the most connected, locally rooted and development-led girls’ and women’s football pathway in NSW.
- Homegrown, for both First Grades. At least 50% of each First Grade squad originating from SSFA community clubs or Sharks pathways, or living in the Sutherland Shire.
- A report card every season. Next year’s grades our women’s and girls’ football for the first time.
Thank you
None of this happens without you. To our coaches and staff, who did the work behind every result in the report card. To our volunteers, who keep every part of the club running. To our players, who give us their best every week. To our families, who trust us with their children and tell us honestly how we’re going. And to the SSFA and the Shire’s community clubs, to every supporter who came through the gates and to everyone who gave to the Foundation: thank you.
We’ll be back after the 2027 season with our next report card, and our women’s and girls’ football in it for the first time.