The 18-year-old missed out on Melbourne Victory's 1-0 win over Newcastle Jets - a result somewhat tarnished by Victory's winner coming from an offside position - due to knee ligament damage from a crunching Luke Wilkshire challenge in Melbourne's semi-final.

Wilkshire went unpunished for the foul, and as a result Theoharous believes the A-League's priority has to be punishing footballers for bad tackles, rather than overruling offside goals.

"There's no place for it in the game," Theoharous told AAP. "There's nothing I could have done to protect myself. And it wasn't punished at all. It is what it is.

"Everyone's saying, 'offside goals, offside goals'.

"But don't worry about that - first you've got to protect your players.

"If you don't do that you miss out on big opportunities and big events like this."

Despite missing the showpiece, the winger is remaining positive about the win, admitting he would have traded an appearance for the win.

"Obviously missing out was disappointing," Theoharous said. "You work hard all year and you miss it.

"But it doesn't matter because at the end of the day, I celebrated with the boys.

"Someone told me before the game, if you miss out on the game and your team wins the championship, I think you take it any day."