Central Coast Mariners coach Nick Montgomery has warned that his high-flying side haven’t achieved anything yet as they target the A-League Men championship crown.
After their emphatic 4-1 win over Adelaide United at Coopers Stadium on Friday that sealed their second-place finish and a semi-final spot, Montgomery said the Mariners would soak up the impressive victory before swiftly shifting focus to the finals.
“We knew tonight we had to win the game; we had to come here and win the game if we wanted second spot and an Asian Cup spot and an opportunity for that,” he said.
“That’s the pressure I put on the boys and they delivered, so it’s hard to worry about other results. We don’t really worry about anybody else.
“We’ll definitely enjoy that result – but we haven’t done anything yet.
“The league’s finished – all credit to (premiers) Melbourne City, best team over the course of the season – but, now it’s finals football so I’m sure everybody in the finals will believe that they can win the championship.
“We know what finals are like, so we’ll be prepared.”
The Mariners will eagerly watch week one of the finals series after avoiding an elimination final and booking a two-leg semi-final play-off against the highest-ranked elimination final winner.
Montgomery said Central Coast will use the break to rest, regroup and prepare accordingly.
“We train hard every day and we’ll continue to do that for two weeks,” he said.
“It gives players an opportunity to really recover and we’ll look at the schedule tonight and work out how we can make sure that coming into that first semi-final we’re in the best condition possible.
“We’ll enjoy watching the games next week and as soon as we know who we’re playing, we’ll prepare for that game over two legs which is going to be exciting for the competition.”
Adelaide coach Carl Veart admitted the Reds were well off the pace against the Mariners.
“In the end they were just a bit more desperate than us in defending their box and more desperate to get forward and score goals,” he said.
“If we had a little bit more care with our ball in and around the box we might have had a few more goals ourselves but we just weren’t good enough tonight – we just weren’t at the races really.”
