Central Coast finished two points clear of Brisbane after the regular season, but the Roar will take form and history into the first leg of their major semi-final at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night.
Central Coast finished two points clear of Brisbane after the regular season, but the Roar will take form and history into the first leg of their major semi-final at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night.
Heading into the marquee match-up in week one of the Hyundai A-League finals series, defending champions Brisbane have re-asserted themselves as title favourites, stringing together an incredibly consistent second-half of the season.
The Roar have lost just one of their last 14 A-League encounters, while the Mariners have dropped four of their last nine, dwindling away an 11-point lead at the top of the ladder to require a 2-1 win over Wellington to seal the minor premiership in the final round.
Ange Postecoglou said the Mariners’ were deserving Premiers’ Plate winners for their efforts over the duration, but heading into the do-or-die finals rounds the Brisbane coach was confident his men had the form to strike back.
“I’ve said all along that form is the most important thing, not necessarily where you finish,” said Postecoglou.
“Our second half of the year has been pretty good … Probably as good as going around, you couldn’t really ask for anything more.”
“Particularly our last eight or nine games have been really, really good, and that gives us plenty of confidence.”
“It’s no coincidence that the teams that win it are usually in first or second place, because they’ve got decent form going into the finals.”
“(The Mariners) probably did fall in a little bit of a hole for a little while, like all teams, but they had a good win last week in a tough place in Wellington, so I guess they’ll be feeling pretty good about themselves.”
Brisbane will field a full-strength side, with key central defender Mohamed Adnan announced a certain starter after training comfortably on Friday morning to prove his recovery from a knee injury.
“Mohamed is the only one we had a doubt over, but he’s alright. It’s a knock. It’s nothing structural or that was going to keep him out this week,” said Postecoglou.
“He’s had last weekend off and we’ve nursed him along a little bit, but he probably could have trained a little bit more this week. We wanted to leave it until today and he trained fine, so he’ll be okay.”
