Wellington Phoenix striker Paul Ifill says it’s time for the team to ‘stop the rot’ of drawn Hyundai A-League results, starting this weekend against the North Queensland Fury.
The Wellington side has seen its past five fixtures end in stalemate, including a 1-1 draw at home to the Fury three weeks ago at Westpac Stadium.
The Phoenix had looked on course for its second win of the season until Chris Grossman connected with a late Robbie Fowler free-kick in the dying seconds of the match to give the Fury a share of the spoils – a result that has added some extra resolve ahead of this Saturday’s return encounter in Townsville.
“I think it’s time we stopped the rot in terms of draws. We need to go and win a game. We haven’t won an away game and I think this is a good chance for us to go and do that,” declared Ifill.
“We know what they are all about. They’ve got a couple of injuries at the moment and we’ve had two weeks to plan for this game.”
He added: “I think if anybody saw the game it was pretty obvious we did enough to win the game [at Westpac Stadium]. It was a lack of concentration at the end and he’s [Fowler] mis-kicked the free-kick, it’s sliced off Duro [skipper Andrew Durante] and … it fell their way.”
“We should have put them to bed a long time before that and won the game comfortably. We’ll look to fix that at the weekend.”
Until his free-kick at the end of the game in Wellington, Fowler had little impact in the match, a credit to Phoenix defenders Manny Muscat, Ben Sigmund, Durante and Tony Lochhead.
“I don’t think he got the service. He is one of those players if you give him a chance he’ll score a goal. But if you cut the service off to him, which we managed to, he’s not going to score a goal,” said Ifill.
“But we’ve got to do it again for another 90 minutes and keeping someone of his ability quiet for 90 minutes is hard to do.”
“At the moment I think our back four are very solid and it’s down to the likes of myself, Chris [Greenacre], Leo [Bertos] and Daniel to put the chances away.”
The Phoenix had a bye last weekend with several key members of the side involved in the All Whites’ 0-0 draw with Bahrain in the 2010 World Cup qualifier in Manama.
Ifill used the break to rest and rehabilitate a hamstring niggle.
“I think the rest was needed. It came at the right time. For me I like to play week in week out just to get a bit of fitness but the timing was right for me and I’ve been able to do a bit extra to strengthen the hamstring and it feels fine.”
