No Letting Up, Says McLaren

Thursday 13th Aug, 2009

As far as Brisbane Strikers coach Stuart McLaren is concerned, there will be no thoughts of his team trying to ease its way into the finals when they take the field at Borzi Park, Mareeba for their last assignment of the regular 2009 Hyundai QSL season on Saturday night.

Having wrapped up the premiership last weekend, the trip to play the Far North Queensland Bulls represents an absolute rarity for the Strikers this season – a game they do not have to win. But with the finals campaign just around the corner, McLaren will not hear of his players approaching the game with anything less than one hundred percent commitment to winning.

The previous game between the Strikers and the Bulls this season finished in a 3-3 draw at Perry Park after a remarkable contest in which the Strikers led three times only to cough up a soft equaliser on each occasion. The Bulls, reduced to ten players for forty-seven minutes after captain Victor Madrid was sent off for a foul on Steve Unsworth, fought admirably to stay in the contest. But McLaren was left seething after the game as he contemplated how wasteful finishing and mistake-prone defending by his team had allowed two precious points to slip at what appeared a crucial stage of the Strikers’ quest to overhaul the then league leaders, Olympic FC.

“In that type of situation, to allow teams off the hook is very frustrating, very annoying”, McLaren said in his post-match comments. “The players feel that as well – I know they do”.

Meanwhile his captain, Matt Smith, summed up his feelings in eight words. “We won, but it feels more like relegation”, he said.

This Thursday night, as the Strikers look ahead to the return encounter, McLaren admitted that he felt his team had some unfinished business with the Bulls.

“If you look at games where nothing is at stake you look for other little motivations”, McLaren said. “And the Bulls are the only team we have not beaten this year”.

“There are also some other small motivations of a statistical kind, such as the fact that we have not dropped a point away to the regional teams this year. It would also be nice to finish with more wins than Olympic (both teams currently have fifteen wins to their name) and it would be nice to finish the season conceding less than a goal a game – and we can do that if we keep a clean sheet”.

In keeping with what he wants his team to achieve in Mareeba, McLaren said he would not be tempted to rest any key players.

“I might alter things slightly, but it will be 98 to 99 percent the same team as last week”, he said. “The season is really too short to be thinking of resting players, and even more so when you’ve got a free weekend coming up before the finals. And players would rather play, to be honest. So there will not be many changes, although I might put one or two players on the bench who haven’t played a lot recently”.

McLaren said he agreed with suggestions that the visit to Mareeba to play the Bulls would probably represent his team’s hardest ‘on-the-road’ test of the year.

“I think so”, he said. “It is the longest flight, followed by at least an hour on the bus and the Bulls seem to play better at home than the other regional sides.

“And, for them, it’s obviously the last home game of the season and they will be out to make it a big last hurrah”.

The Strikers can also take it for granted that the Bulls, who are based in an area with a proud footballing history and boast passionate home ground support, will have other reasons to perform well.

After all, what better way could there be to sign off from your inaugural season in the statewide competition than by beating the champions?

While the Bulls’ inconsistency has been the main factor separating them from the top four this season, they have certainly shown they have the ability to trouble the top sides in the competition. Having drawn with both the Brisbane Strikers and Olympic away from home, the Bulls pushed Olympic all the way at Borzi Park before losing 5-4, and can boast a win over the Sunshine Coast Fire and an unbeaten record against the North Queensland Razorbacks.

They will go into the contest with the Strikers with good momentum, having won their last three games against the Razorbacks, Bundaberg Spirit and the QAS.