If someone had of told North Queensland at the start of its inaugural A-League campaign that halfway through the season it’d be sitting eighth having lost just four games, the Fury would have been pretty happy.
After suffering through three opening defeats the fledgling club has lost just one, drawn six and won three of its last 10 matches.
“The fact is we had a terrible start,” captain Robbie Fowler admitted.
“But we’ve given ourselves a little bit of a chance now. I’m not going to stand here and say we’re going to do this and we’re going to do that though.”
“We’ve gone about things really quietly.”
“We’ve surprised a few people and I think that’s the way we’ll try and continue.”
Recent successes including consecutive wins over Perth (2-1) and Gold Coast (2-0), which have lifted the Fury off the bottom of the table, haven’t stopped coach Ian Ferguson contemplated what might have been.
“When you look back at the results we’ve had and the performances we’ve put in … we really should have some more points on the board than what we’ve got,” Ferguson said.
“But I can’t keep dwelling on that, and keep going on about it. If somebody said that (we’d be sitting eighth at this point in the season) I probably would have taken that.”
Ferguson has chosen the same fifteen that did the job at Skilled Park last week to travel to Energy Australia Stadium to take on the Jets.
If North Queensland can bring home a victory it’ll be the first time ever it’s claimed three straight wins.
“They’ve done a job for the club … and they’re doing themselves proud,” Ferguson said of his current squad.
“Two victories in a row and let’s hope they can try and go for three and get a little bit of club history.”
The Fury remains wary of Newcastle after it suffered a 3-0 defeat to the Phoenix on Wednesday.
“We’re quietly confident,” Fowler said.
“Is it a good time or is it a bad time to play Newcastle? They’ve just lost in Wellington so we want to catch them on a bad day.”
“The good thing about playing two games in quick succession is you get a chance really quickly to bounce back from a defeat so that’s probably what they’ll be trying to do.”
“But we’ve just got to focus on our own game.”
