Central Coast coach Lawrie McKinna has urged his chargers to lift their heads after bowing out of the race for the Hyundai A-League Premiership.
The Mariners went down 2-1 to Queensland Roar in the second leg of the Minor Semi-Final at Suncorp Stadium, bringing an end to their 2008/09 Hyundai A-League campaign that ended in disastrous fashion.
Central Coast finished the season with five consecutive losses and McKinna admitted player morale was down.
But the big upside for McKinna is the AFC Champions League, with the Mariners soon set for international action.
The Mariners boss urged his players to remain upbeat.
“Definitely after the last few weeks, the boys’ heads have been a bit down,” McKinna said.
“But there is no use dwelling on it, we have to get over the last five weeks and take the positives out of the last 35 minutes.”
“We have to move forward and give the Asian Championship a good shake.”
McKinna said his side would start preparing on Monday for their March 11 fixture against Korean outfit Pohang Steelers.
“We’ll be assessing the boys, where they are at physically, freshen them up a bit … and we’ve got new boys coming in,” he said.
“We’ve got some things in the pipeline, there’s not going to be a lot of downtime, we have got a big four months ahead of us now.”
Mariners skipper Alex Wilkinson said his side was keen to make amends after a poor finish to the season.
“Very excited, obviously I’m disappointed the way our season ended, but now that it’s over, we can look forward to the ACL and the boys are really excited,” Wilkinson said.
“We’re looking forward to the next four weeks, knuckling down and getting some good game time in, and sorting out the things that we are not doing right.”
