A tough schedule and some sparkling home form earned the Wellington Phoenix players a kick about at the beach on Friday.
A tough schedule and some sparkling home form earned the Wellington Phoenix players a kick about at the beach on Friday.
With a match against the Perth Glory looming on Sunday – the third fixture in a week for the Phoenix – coach Ricki Herbert made the most of a glorious spell of weather in the New Zealand capital to ease his players back into training after their good 3-0 win over the Newcastle Jets on Wednesday night.
“We just thought we’d have a complete change today,” said Herbert. “The players who hadn’t played worked pretty hard yesterday and the other ones were still a little bit tight and sore hence we’re here (at the beach).
“For us it’s just making sure that physically we can be up for it again on Sunday.”
It was a decision that had the full backing of Leo Bertos.
“It’s nice to have a little change of scenery, something a bit different, to keep the buzz about the team,” he said.
“Things like this get the team bonding together, keeps the morale high and hopefully we can take that into the game at the weekend.”
Bertos however stressed that the run out at the beach should not be seen as the Phoenix taking Perth lightly.
When the two teams met in round two it took a late thunderbolt free-kick from the impressive attacking midfielder for Wellington to secure a 2-1 win and heading into this weekend’s match Glory sit one spot above six-placed Wellington on the Hyundai A-League ladder despite a recent run of three successive losses.
“They are a dangerous team. We saw that the last time we played them here,” Bertos said.
“Their form wasn’t too great then but they were unlucky not to get a result against us that day. We can’t take anything for granted that’s for sure.”
Wellington’s recent home form though has been impressive and it has not lost at Westpac Stadium since going down 1-0 to Queensland Roar in October last year.
The past two home matches have yielded nine goals after the Phoenix broke a record run of six draws with a staggering 6-0 thrashing of Gold Coast.
Although it went on to lose 3-1 away at Sydney the following week, the goal-scoring mojo returned against the Jets on Wednesday night.
Bertos, who started the Jets game on the bench but came on and set up Paul Ifill for the team’s final goal, said the players were preparing the same way now as they had earlier in the season.
“I think it’s just that bit of luck which was something we didn’t have at the start of the year.
“At the start of the year we were creating lots of opportunities but we just couldn’t finish them off. Now we’re doing both.
“It’s nice everything seems to be working out. Hopefully now we can keep it going.”
Mark Paston was the only player not taking part on Friday and Herbert was hopeful his goalkeeper would be fit enough to play on Sunday after missing the Jets win with a hip injury suffered in the loss to Sydney.
“He’ll have to train fully tomorrow to get a pass mark. Hopefully he can do it.”
If he doesn’t Reece Crowther will start in goal again and assistant coach Jonathan Gould will resume his place on the bench.
Herbert is not expecting to make too many changes to his team despite the recent heavy workload.
“I don’t think it will be too dissimilar (to the Jets game). I don’t think there is too much to change.
“We’ll just see what they are all like tomorrow and as long as they are mentally in the right space then we will probably even go with the same squad.”
