Scottish import Steven McGarry will be desperately trying to impress Perth coach Dave Mitchell over the last few weeks of the Hyundai A-League season after being offered a short-term contract at the Glory.
Former Motherwell midfielder McGarry was officially unveiled by Perth on Wednesday morning, but the 30-year-old knows he only has the rest of the season to convince the coach he’s worth being offered a longer-term deal.
Despite struggling with the Perth heat, having left one of the coldest Scottish winters in decades, McGarry can’t wait to make his Hyundai A-League debut.
The attacking midfielder is keen to establish himself as Perth takes on Melbourne in a crunch game for the Glory, ahead of matches against Adelaide and Central Coast in a seven-day period.
“I’ve been here a week now and I’ve had a look and Dave’s had a look at myself, and things have went well,” McGarry said.
“I’ve come in and enjoyed the training and basically, now I’m signed and desperate to get involved in the three big games coming up.”
“I’m going to get my wife over as well, she’s going to come and have a look, so we can see if we can possibly make it long term.”
“But it also depends on how well I do and how well the team does to the end of this season.”
Although somewhat concerned with how his body will cope with the heat, McGarry is confident he has the match fitness to last 90 minutes, despite having played just one league game for Motherwell against Hearts in late December.
Although he’d been at Motherwell for three seasons since crossing from St Mirren, McGarry had found himself playing reserve football for his former Scottish club as coach Jim Gannon implemented a youth policy, freezing out some of the older players.
Gannon’s sacking in late December led to Craig Brown taking over the Fir Park club and the new manager was keen for McGarry to stay.
But the attacking midfielder said Gannon’s sacking came too late to prevent him leaving as he’d already had discussions with the Glory and couldn’t get the idea of playing in Australia out of his head.
“Craig Brown came in and he actually wanted me to stay, so it was a bit of a dilemma,” McGarry said.
“I just decided to take a risk and came out.”
“I terminated my contract, came to an agreement. They wanted me to stay and hopefully be part of the things there but I thought to myself, I know Perth and Dave had a good interest in me.”
“So I was willing to come out here and take a risk at it and it could be a life-changing experience for myself and my wife, but we’re willing to do that if things are right.”
In a big day for comings and goings at the Glory, McGarry’s signature coincided with news from North Queensland that striker Daniel McBreen had requested a move to the Glory for the rest of the season, before heading to Central Coast for 2010-11.
The Glory have already lost one striker in Eugene Dadi, who’s move to Wellington opened up the foreign-player position on Perth’s roster that McGarry now occupies, and Mitchell was looking to increase his strike force after generally struggling to score in the last two months.
However, McBreen’s move to Perth will be in exchange for speedy defender Jimmy Downey, who will return to his native Queensland after a season plagued by a severe knee injury, that’s only seem him play three matches.
The Glory are also confident defender Chris Coyne will line up against the Victory, despite undergoing a lightning trip to China this week to trial for Shandong in a bid to secure a loan move at the end of January.
