Perth veteran Jamie Harnwell is expecting a shootout when Central Coast heads west for what might be a season defining match for the Glory.
Speaking before training on Wednesday, Harnwell said the Glory hadn’t been able to string together a run of successive wins over the last few seasons.
But he said this is exactly what the Glory needs to do, starting with the Mariners this weekend, if it is to build some winning momentum and challenge for a top-four position over the last nine matches this season.
But Harnwell knows this won’t be easy against a Mariners outfit boasting some of the best attacking players in the competition, including current top scorer Matt Simon.
“With their front three you can pick any of them (to score),” Harnwell said. “Sasho Petrovski, Dylan Macallister, Matt Simon, if they come over with that sort of mindset again it’s going to be a fantastic game.”
“We’re not going to sit back and defend. It’s our home ground and we’re going to go out and attack.”
“So if Lawrie (Mariners coach Lawrie McKinna) comes over with that sort of mindset for them, then we’re going to give it a go.”
“We’ve got two home games now to start making up some more points before going away again, so the focus is winning the game this week and getting ourselves that bit closer to the top four again.”
“We need to get on a good roll of three, four, five wins in a row and that’ll really put you into contention and hopefully we can start that roll again this week and get these next two home games,” he said.
Harnwell said the side is still feeling confident despite last weekend’s 4-1 loss to Queensland on a rugged Suncorp Stadium pitch that had been cut up by the Rugby League World Cup final the night before.
But the 31-year-old club veteran maintained the Glory played well enough to claim maximum points, especially in the first half where they couldn’t put away their chances before Queensland struck with two goals just before the break.
“You look at your scoreline at the end of the game, and you think, ‘gees, was it really a 4-1 game’,” Harnwell said.
“That’s sort of reminiscent of back to where we were at the start of the season (but) we’ve been pretty good the last few weeks and it (wins) hasn’t happened but obviously we’ve got to pick ourselves off and work hard again.”
“We knocked the ball around well on a pretty dodgy pitch, we kept it well, we created chances and we limited them to pretty much nothing until one minute before half time.”
“We were very confident about the way we played, even in the second half we went out and had a go and created some chances as well.”
“So we’re happy with the way we played, just not how we defended at times,” he said.
The Glory will be boosted for this match by the return of Brazilian playmaker Amaral from a knee injury while left winger Nick Rizzo is also expected to be fit after missing last week with a groin injury.
Key defender Hayden Foxe is still another two matches away from resuming after having a lump removed from his leg a fortnight ago and his absence could prove particularly costly against the attack-minded Mariners.
