The 'sad' situation Taggart finds himself in thanks to the ruthlessness of South East Asian football: 'I felt that pressure too!'

Football Friends with Ben Garuccio and Stefan Mauk is a weekly podcast produced by Football360 and available across video, audio and written formats. Here are some of the best bites from this week's episode.

Herrington 2.0 This time last year, A-League fans got their brief taste of Lucas Herrington, as he burst onto the scene with Brisbane Roar. While his ascent since has been well documented and meteoric, 22-year-old Diesel Herrington will line up for Central Coast Mariners this season if fans can't quite get enough of watching a Herrington in defence.

After Mauk described the Socceroos defender as someone who "looks like William Saliba at Arsenal", Garuccio added: "We played against Central Coast and his brother, is the exact same. It features interviews withMelbourne Victory's Harrison SawyerandSouth Melbourne's Sebastian Pasquali.

It's a strange one for me. Obviously I've not seen enough of him, it'll be interesting to see how he goes this year, but for me, he looks the exact same.

He looks so comfortable on the ball; they look the exact same to me - the way they run and everything on the pitch, it's ridiculous. Even the way they play, obviously a centre back as well - we'll see how he goes in the A-League this year.

Diesel has been in Gosford since 2024 after having a crack overseas in Denmark with AGF. AIS v A-League academies With five of Garuccio's teammates off with the Olyroos, including teenagers Akol Akon and James Overy, both playing above their age, the pair mused over the No AIS (Australian Institute of Sport) anymore.

These players are coming from academies around the A-League, which is a league that probably doesn't have the funding there to actually build out amazing academies yet," Garuccio mused. "But, the exposure that these guys have gotten from playing first-team football, how much better they look now against South Korea, a great footballing country.

South Korea, the players are technically amazing and they're sharp. But there were periods in that game where I'm like, 'we look better'.

Mauk added that the fact the A-League players were still out of season was another factor worth considering in measuring the performances. I think there's obviously a lot of good young players coming through in the league."