Craig O'Donoghue from the USA | World Cup Update (22.06.2026)

**Craig O'Donoghue** (0:00)
On June 26th, Super Grilla arrives in theaters.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:03)
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**Mark Duffield** (0:06)
Your powers are gonna take in now. This is very impressive.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:10)
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**Craig O'Donoghue** (0:17)
Crypto! And fresh movie of the summer.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:20)
What are you going to do? Something stupid. No, it's a party.

**Craig O'Donoghue** (0:24)
DC's Supergirl, only in theaters June 26th.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:27)
Get tickets now.

**Craig O'Donoghue** (0:27)
Rated PG-13 may be inappropriate for children under 13

**SPEAKER_2** (0:30)
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**Mark Duffield** (1:00)
Welcome back to the SCNWA studio here for the second hour of the show today. 15.1 degrees outside. There are showers. It is very wet in Perth today. It is not wet over in America. That is where Craig O'Donoghue from The West Australian finds himself. He's there as a fan, not a journalist, but I'll bet he'll be claiming on it.
Craig, welcome to the show.

**Craig O'Donoghue** (1:25)
You might be correct there, Duff. Happy American Father's Day to everybody over there. I found out today a homeless person wished me happy Father's Day this morning as we were on our way to catch the ferry to Alcatraz. I'm like, I had no idea it was Father's Day until he mentioned that. Then it all made sense suddenly why everything is so busy over here.

**Mark Duffield** (1:43)
Congratulations on that. We went down 2-0 to the US in Seattle. A couple of things, the stadium was touted as a loudest stadium at the tournament. Was it that loud?

**Craig O'Donoghue** (1:56)
Yeah, it was super loud. It was intimidating.
As an away fan, all the Aussies in general were pocketed in sections together. So I was behind the goals where the Americans scored both their goals in that big pocket of Aussies there. So we had Americans either side of us really under the, and they were underneath the roof whereas we were out in the open. And the way the noise just reverberated around the stadium, you just sat back and went, wow, this is a unique type of atmosphere. And when they were singing the National Anthem, and when they were doing their USA chants, and when the military helicopters flew over the top, like everything just got louder and louder and louder. When that second goal happened after the VAR review, it was just, the whole joint was rocking. And you just sort of sat back and went, I don't know how the Aussies are going to recover from this, because it just felt like the whole world was on top of you.

**Mark Duffield** (2:51)
So as a fan, Tony Popovich wasn't happy with the referee. What about yourself? Do you think we were hard done by?

**Craig O'Donoghue** (2:59)
Yeah, it felt like every decision went against us for the entire day. There was a bloke sitting behind me, just slightly to my right. He would have been kicked out of every stadium in Australia with the way that he was swearing at the referee.
He was losing his mind, and so was my son as well. Yeah, it wouldn't get any rub of the green at all. So that was just so frustrating throughout the entire day. He sort of looked up and went, when Aaron Kunda got flattened with a bump at one point, it was just a hip and shoulder Aussie rule style. It was just so blatantly illegal, and we didn't get that free kick either, and you sort of sit back going, we can't get any rub of the green at all coming our way. And it just felt like everything was going against us.

**Mark Duffield** (3:40)
Now, interesting changes to the team that Tony Popovich made, and there's been some questioning about the fact that the two scorers from the first game, Aaron Kunda and Metcalfe, were both on the bench at the start of the game. I've got a theory, Cod.
These are six-day break games, so we're Sunday into Saturday into Friday, when we play Paraguay this week. Is it possible that Popovich is trying to manage the schedule, and also manage the games that he thinks we have a really good chance of winning, as opposed to the one that we're always up against it in? That maybe this was one, he kind of half put in the too hard basket, and then we make sure we get the outcome we need against Paraguay, and we get through to the knockout rounds.