Melbourne Heart skipper Simon Colosimo wasn’t copping any talk that Thursday night’s crucial 1-0 win over Sydney FC at the SFS being the turning of the corner for their season.
While delighted his side had been able to withstand some concerted pressure from the home side to snatch back-to-back wins after seven games without a victory, the Heart central defender refused to admit his side had turned their season around.
That’s because he didn’t believe their season had ever gone off course despite their long wait to return to the winners circle.
“I don-t think it was ever off track,” Colosimo said.
“We had a couple of indifferent results but we’ve always believed that we’re a good team and that we can get results.”
“We’ve probably been a little bit naive defensively more than anything.”
“But if you saw tonight from the corners and free kicks we defended really well and to be quite honest out there I didn-t really feel that much under pressure.”
“It might have seemed that way and the stats might tell you that but I looked around at the boys and they were all comfortable, they knew their jobs and we went on with it.”
The Heart had to dig in for long periods against the Sky Blues, who put in their best performance for some time in front of their home fans.
Sydney created most of the best chances and dominated the second half with Melbourne goalkeeper Clint Bolton called upon on at least three occasions to deny his former club a breakthrough.
After absorbing the pressure John van ‘t Schip’s side then struck just five minutes from the end when substitutes Gerald Sibon and Adrian Zahra combined with the latter producing a cool finish that catapult’s the Heart up to fifth place.
Van ‘t Schip conceded his side had got more than they deserved but feels they were due the bit of luck that had been missing on other occasions this season.
“We’ve had a lot of games this year going the other way so I think it’s about time that it fell our way,” he said.
“Sydney will not be happy with it. The second half we didn-t come out of dressing room properly and it wasn-t what we wanted but on the other hand the (substitutes) came in and helped us and that’s what they’re for.”
Colosimo, one of three ex-Sydney players in the Heart squad along with Bolton and John Aloisi, said the importance of the win was more about keeping his current club in the race for the playoffs than getting one over his former club.
“Whether we played Sydney, Brisbane or whoever, to get back-to-back wins was our aim,” he said.
