Shane Smeltz always believes he will find the net. With seven goals in two games he should be confident, and he’s also ready to bring down his former club this Saturday at nib Stadium.
The relationship between scoring and the confidence of a striker goes hand-in-hand. It doesn’t take a genius to look at someone like Andy Carroll in the English Premier league and see he has lost his confidence in himself.
Then you look at one Shane Smeltz and realise this is a man who believes he will find the net. With seven goals in two games he should be confident, and he is. He-s also ready to bring down his former club this Saturday at nib Stadium.
“Confidence is high, you have to be confident when you have scored seven in two games, being a striker, but having said that my feet are on the ground and I-m focused on going out there and doing my business again this weekend,” Smeltz said.
“It-s been fantastic, the biggest thing about it is the timing of it, looking back I don-t know if too many times in my career I have scored seven goals in two games but you know I-m certainly going to roll with it and take that confidence into the next game.”
There probably aren-t too many times Smeltz has scored from an impossible angle like he did last week either, when he netted from almost parallel to the goals, looping a header over Melbourne Heart’s Clint Bolton.
And to his credit, he’s honest about how he managed that one.
“You could give me 100 of them crosses and I wouldn-t score from that angle again,” he said.
“It-s one of those freak moments that fall your way, if you look at it Bolton is almost on the line or close to the line anyway.
“I think as the header has looped back across there are two defenders there almost on the post and for that to hit the post and go across the line is a bit freakish, but it-s one of those things I will take.”
While Smeltz might be the focus of all the attention at the moment, he was also quick to point out his success wouldn-t have come without his teammates also pulling their weight and put Perth-s rise in form down to them taking a serious look in the mirror over Christmas.
“We all had a serious look at ourselves around the Christmas period, and vowed to change things,” he said.
“And we have turned things around, everybody believes we can go out and win any game that we play and the confidence here at home has risen even further.”
So what has changed for the Glory then? According to Smeltz it-s the fact they have tightened the screws in defence, as well as the rise of some talented youngsters.
“In certain games at the start we were giving teams early goals or easy goals. We have certainly tightened up on that, at the moment there is a great partnership between Bas [Van den Brink] and [Steve] Pantelidis and that is working really well.
“Then there is young Josh Risdon, he has come in this season and done really well and that game he had last week was one of his best all season. So he has stepped up and proven himself to be a very good performer, things like that help.”
