Wellington Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert has praised his charges following a spirited performance which saw them overcome a two-goal deficit and book a berth in Wednesday’s Pre Season Cup final in Wellington.
Wellington Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert has praised his charges following a spirited performance which saw them overcome a two-goal deficit and book a berth in Wednesday’s Pre Season Cup final in Wellington.
An inspired second-half showing saw the Phoenix pile on three goals to overrun a shell-shocked Sydney FC line-up 3-2 in an at times ill-tempered affair.
Speaking at the post-match-press conference Herbert conceded just qualifying for the final was a significant milestone for the club, but warned Melbourne Victory not to expect an easy time of it in this week’s decider.
“Rest assured we’ll give it our best shot to win it,” Herbert said.
“I think it’s in everybody’s best interest now, you get yourself into a final to do what we can.”
Herbert admitted things were looking a little shaky at the interval but could not find fault with the application his players showed in the second stanza.
“We came across pretty confident (but at) half-time I was wondering where that confidence has gone,” Herbert said.
“I think we backed ourselves, we knew with the results today what we had to do and a win would get a (home) final so we’ve achieved that.”
“But more importantly it’s going to be a great chance again to look at 90 minutes, I thought some of the players were quite outstanding tonight, (they) rallied around and showed that depth of character that is going to be hugely important in what’s going to be a tough year.”
Sydney FC coach John Kosmina, who now faces the prospect of entering the season opener against Melbourne Victory without a recognised striker after Alex Brosque and Dez Giraldi received their second yellow cards of the tournament, was less impressed.
Both Brosque and Giraldi must now serve one-match bans while promising midfielder Mitchell Prentice must also sit out his side’s next match after he was red-carded in the dying stages following a heated scuffle.
“I’m pretty disappointed because we’ve talked about it (ill-discipline) enough and we’ve been told enough and it was stupid,” Kosmina said.
“I mean Dez maybe was unlucky that he gave the penalty away because from what I hear it was pretty soft but he didn’t have to keep chasing the referee … he wanted a chance in the A-League, he’s got it and he’s blown it basically.”
“‘Brosquie’ was silly, he scored a great goal and took the edge off of that by getting himself booked for approaching the referee.”
“And Mitchell Prentice well that was just dumb, really dumb … he had no chance of winning that ball.”
He added: “The thing is that the team-mates play a price for stupidity, the club suffers because of player’s stupidity – maybe these guys have to learn a hard lesson.”
