'People don't realise': Ex-Australian international on why Portsmouth A-League trio are struggling
Jacob Farrell, Thomas Waddingham and Hayden Matthews have started 14 Championship games between them
Mark Robertson has lifted the lid on the acclimatisation issues which have dogged Pompey’s A-League imports.
And he has pinpointed Adrian Segecic’s previous experience in Holland as pivotal in ensuring the 22-year-old has bucked the frustrating trend.
From July 2024, over a 10-and-a-half month period the Blues recruited Jacob Farrell, Thomas Waddingham, Hayden Matthews and Segecic from Down Under.
However, Farrell, Waddingham and Matthews’ time at Fratton Park have been devastated by injury, totalling just 14 Championship appearances between them.
In contrast, Segecic marked his maiden season in England by becoming Pompey’s leading scorer for 2025-26, with 11 goals in 40 outings.
And Robertson, the father of ex-Blues loanee Alex and footballing mentor to Segecic, has pinpointed the reasons behind the Australian players’ ongoing struggles.
‘The intensity is Australia is far less because of the heat’
He told The News: ‘There’s a lot to be said about the injuries for the Aussie boys, but people don’t realise that to acclimatise in a different country as a human is difficult - to do it as an athlete is even harder.
‘In Australia, we only play 30 games across the whole of the season, very rarely would you ever play a back-to-back game on a Saturday-Tuesday.
‘Every away trip is a flight. You’re in on the Friday, play the Saturday, the game will finish too late at night to fly back, so you fly home on the Sunday. Therefore you’re back at training on the Monday or Tuesday and, before you know it, you are flying again on the Friday.
‘So there are far fewer games. Dare I say it, but the intensity of the matches is also far less in Australia because of the heat. It’s boiling hot, 35 degrees, especially when you play in Perth.
‘Then you come here and you’re running about to stay warm. I always found it easier to play in a colder environment because you can breathe easier, fatigue certainly doesn’t set in as quickly.
‘Sometimes it’s luck, sometimes it’s genetics, sometimes you pick up injuries, although a lot of the boys’ injuries have been soft tissue.
‘We play on sand-based surfaces back in Australia, which is a lot firmer than what you have over here with soil. That probably plays a part in it as well.’
Loan season with Dutch side Dordrecht
Segecic suffered an ankle ligament injury after appearing as a substitute against Coventry in October 2025, sidelining him for four matches.
However, that was his only Pompey set-back, remaining a regular in John Mousinho’s squad and totalling 24 league starts, while finishing the season in impressive fashion, with five goals in three matches.
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Unlike his compatriots at Fratton Park, Segecic had previously left Australia for Europe to further his footballing education, with a successful loan spell at Dutch side Dordrecht in 2023-24.
And Robertson, who played for Australia as well as Burnley and Swindon, believes that experience in Holland’s second tier has enabled the talented attacker to cope with demands in England.
He added: ‘The other boys have come in directly from the A-League, whereas Sega went and braved it out in Holland.
‘The club he played for wasn’t a glitz and glamour football club, it was a workmanlike club, so he was riding his bike to training, finishing training and then riding his bike back home.
‘He had to work very hard for it, they didn’t have all the resources on site, so he needed to do his own rehab and prehab away from the facilities.
‘But it gave him a great grounding for football in general, so when he did come to England it was seamless. He felt quite privileged joining Pompey because it’s like no other football club he had ever been at.’