Unsworth: The Strikers’ Striker (Part Two)

Thursday 24th Sep, 2009

This week we complete our interview with Steve Unsworth, conducted in Mareeba a little over a month ago. We pick up where we left off – immediately after Unsworth’s match winning two-goal haul against the Redlands City Devils in Round 6. This week, amongst other things, Unsworth answers questions about the rest of his QSL season, the speed of the modern game, the season-defining Olympic FC v Brisbane Strikers game in Round 18, and the QSL v BPL debate in Brisbane. And Unsworth also reveals some rather surprising information about the direction in which he would like his playing career to head....

SW: Since that time you’ve pretty much held your spot most weeks. Are you satisfied with your form or do you think your best may be yet to come?

Unsworth: I think I’m definitely improving each week. At the start it was difficult to crack into the starting line-up and I’d come off the bench, and as a result of that your game fitness is never going to be a hundred percent. But since I’ve been in the starting line-up and I’ve got a couple of games under my belt my fitness has come back a lot and I feel like my form’s pretty good and I think it’s getting better and better every week. In the last few weeks I’ve been playing up front with ‘Morls’ and we’ve had a pretty good partnership up there. So I think definitely, coming into the finals, I think I’m getting better and starting to hit my peak at the right time.

SW: Is that a fitness thing or are you adding new things to your game?

Unsworth: I think a lot of it’s fitness. As much as you train and train and train, if you’re not playing, and playing full games, it’s an uphill battle to try and get fit. And in the last four or five weeks I’ve played mostly full games and I’ve been benefitting from that and it’s probably one of the major reasons why I’ve been playing a lot better. I mean, as the season has gone on I’ve been able to train a lot more and, when you are starting, it gives you a bit more confidence, I guess. When you play well and you can get a start again you definitely feel a lot more confident.

SW: It’s fair to say that you are not renowned as the fastest thing on two legs, but you still score plenty of goals. How do you compensate?

Unsworth: I think one of the major attributes I’ve got is that I’m what I consider a smart player, I guess. I know where to be at the right time and I’m able bring other players into the game and bring other players along. I’ve never had a lot of speed about me, but I guess I’ve always had a pretty reasonable radar for goal. I know where the goals are and it’s probably one of the major reasons why I’ve scored goals over my life.

SW: With the way the game is going at the moment, it does seem that the emphasis is always on speed, sometimes to the exclusion of other things. Do you think that’s a falsity?

Unsworth: I think when people refer to the speed of the game they are referring to the quickness of movement and the quickness of the passing. And I’m pretty reasonable at passing and getting into decent positions. I don’t think that pure running speed is as important as people say. Obviously, in every team you need to have players who are quick and you need to have players who can defend against quick players – and we’ve got Michael Butters who shuts down anyone who comes over his side. But I think the main thing people are referring to is the speed of thought, if you know what I mean. Being able to make quick decisions and move the ball fast, and I’m pretty good at doing both of those things. I can make fast decisions and move the ball pretty quickly and I think from that aspect I’m still able to keep up with the game despite the fact that I don’t have a lot of foot speed.

SW: The Strikers have just taken out the championship and that had a lot to do with going to Olympic when the team was down on strength and probably a little bit down on luck – and going there and winning. Can you describe what the feeling and mood was in the camp leading up to that game and in the dressing room?

Unsworth: Yeah. I think we had to put the initial disappointment out of our minds about the Redlands game – of not only dropping points but also losing three of our best players. I think Stuart did an excellent job getting our minds immediately focused on Olympic and saying....I think it was just the confidence he gave us in saying... you’ve lost a few players and they’re not part of the squad any more, but that he always had lots of confidence in the eleven that he put out. And then on game day he said ‘I’m absolutely one hundred percent confident that the eleven that I put out is going to do the job’. I think definitely that bolstered everyone up. Everyone felt like ‘this is it’, that they’d got chosen in the team and that they had to go on there and do a job. And I think everyone really did stand up that day and do the job and brought the three points home. I think the main thing was everyone was confident in each other and confident that we were going to go out and do the job with the team on the park.

SW: Was there anybody who really stood out to you that day?

Unsworth: I’d probably say Chris Di Sipio had one of the best games I’ve seen him play this year, but I have to say it was just good to watch as a team effort. I remember when I got substituted in the second half just sitting on the bench, and every time an Olympic player got the ball you could see a blue jersey running over there. It was just like they were getting swarmed on by bees. It was great just to be out there and just watching that. I was up front on my own so I wasn’t really in there like the midfielders were, but you could see any time anyone from Olympic picked up the ball they just had no time on the ball and they were getting closed down very fast, and I thought that was just a great effort all round by the team.

SW: You talked about playing up front that day, but it was only a week or two later you found yourself in midfield.

Unsworth (laughing): Yeah!

SW: How did you find that experience?

Unsworth: Well, I have to admit that I actually thoroughly enjoyed the experience! When you play up front all year and then you get a bit of a sea change it’s kind of nice to play somewhere different. Just the circumstances of the game – we lost a man early on, so Stuey said he had to drop one of us back (between Gareth and I), and he asked me to go back. And playing alongside Scotty MacNicol, he really helped me that day just talking to me and driving me through, but as I said before, my attributes are that I’m a reasonably quick thinker and I’m a reasonably good passer and both of those things are crucial to be an effective midfield player. So I think the fact that I’m able to do both those things reasonably well helped me that day. But, to be honest with you, Whitsunday Miners – even though we were a man down – didn’t really press us and push us and I had a pretty easy time in the midfield in the end. It looked like we could keep the ball for long periods of time and knock the ball around pretty easily without too many dramas.

SW: You might have done slightly too well, because you got handed the job again at the start of the next game, didn’t you?

Unsworth: Yeah, that’s right. Stuey was just experimenting a bit to just see what it would be like if I was playing in behind Luke and Gareth and then, once we’d worked out the way Bundaberg were playing, he just pushed me up front again and we played with three up front and I think that worked quite well again. So, yeah, I think I’m fairly adaptable. I have to say I fairly enjoyed my little run in midfield. I probably didn’t enjoy doing as much running as I did, but it was good to play a full game and play somewhere different.

SW: Do you think you have ever been involved in a more talented team than this one at the moment?

Unsworth: No, I don’t think I have. In terms of personnel, the players that I played with when I first came to the Strikers in 2007 – we probably had a lot more talented personnel in that squad individually. But in terms of the way we’ve played as a team this year there hasn’t been that many teams that can come close to us. I think that’s been the major difference that I’ve seen between the two squads. Even though we probably had more talented individuals in ’07, the way we’ve played this year has been top-notch and the fact that we’ve played as a team so well has made us so successful.

SW: You’ve had the success, and now you’re going into the finals shortly. Do you think the team will be any less motivated now that it’s got the championship?

Unsworth: The players that were at the Strikers last year, and even the players that came in, saw the final that we played in last year against the Sunny Coast. I think everyone is still stinging about that. We lost to the Sunny Coast (again) in the second half of the season and we think it’ll probably be out of them and Olympic who we face in the final. But I think now that we’ve got a taste of success, everyone is pretty keen to go on with it and keep winning, I think. It’s a bit like a bug: Once you catch it you just want to keep winning.

SW: For yourself, what do you think is ahead of you after this season?

Unsworth: I’m not sure, really. I definitely want to get back into coaching in some form. And I’d hope that there’d be an opportunity at the Strikers for me to continue with that next year. I guess I’ve just got to see where I’m at with my life. I’m going to go back overseas at the end of the year. The major thing I’ve found difficult is that I’ve had a new job this year and I’ve been travelling a little bit and unable to be as committed to training as I would have liked. So I guess at the start of next year I’ll have to see how I’m looking for work for the year and make sure that I can balance my soccer and my work time. That’s pretty important. I’d definitely like to continue at the Strikers and to be honest with you I would love to play somewhere differently on the park.

SW: Oh, yes?

Unsworth: Yes. I guess I feel like I’ve played my entire life at striker, and I’m getting kind of sick of being kicked up the backside by big centre backs! I wouldn’t mind going somewhere else. When you’ve played in the same position your whole life sometimes you want to have a crack somewhere else.

SW: Anywhere in mind, in particular?

Unsworth: Oh, in defence! I’ve always fancied myself as a bit of a defender. I think I can read the game reasonably well.

SW: Do you want to kick some strikers up the backside?

Unsworth: Yeah, I want to kick some strikers up the backside, that’s right! I’ve mucked around there, just in training games, played a bit of defence and enjoyed it. And despite all the defenders telling me I’m absolutely mad and crazy – ‘Chooky’ (Craig Collins) claims it’s the most boring position on the field – I think when you reach a point in your career, and I’ve been playing a long time now, it’s good to mix it up and try something different. I always enjoy new challenges so playing somewhere different would be definitely a new challenge.

SW: Just looking now at the QSL as a whole, are you glad you stuck around to play in it?

Unsworth: Absolutely, yeah. As I said, I firmly believe the standard has gone up this year. Anything in its teething year like last year, there’s bit of unknown-ness about it, a bit of unsurety about how it’s going to pan out, and about what the teams you play in it are going to be like and the quality of the players. But you can really see that the regional teams have made a big effort to step up this year. They’ve managed to draw on good players from their regions, and the Brisbane teams especially have become a hell of a lot stronger and pulled a lot of the best players out of the BPL to come and play in the QSL. So overall, in my personal opinion, the standard of the competition has lifted and I’m absolutely stoked that I made the decision I did to come and play in the QSL and I’ve been really happy with the way everything has turned out. I don’t have any regrets about playing BPL last year and I have absolutely no regrets about playing in the QSL this year. And I think, and I hope, that the competition is going to continue to get stronger year to year.

SW: Ever since the start of the QSL, in Brisbane there has been an element out there, a certain number of people, who seem to want it to fail and they don’t waste an opportunity to criticise it. Are you aware of that?

Unsworth: Oh, for as long as I’ve been in Brisbane soccer there’s always people willing to criticise anyone who puts their head above the water, so to speak.

SW: In terms of the criticism of the QSL, what’s your take on it – on the overall picture of that divide in Brisbane?

Unsworth: I can see why people would criticise the QSL. Last year, I guess, I think a lot of the people who made the criticisms felt like it was a sudden decision to have the QSL. It was a sudden decision for the clubs to go into the QSL and, as a result they may have lost players and they may have felt that the BPL would have dropped in standard a little bit. So I can see both sides of the coin. I can see that those people who’ve been at their clubs their entire lives in support of that club, and there’s this new competition coming in, and it could drain some of their players and some of their sponsors and take away from them – you know, I can see why they would criticise it. But I think people now need to realise that the QSL is here to stay, that the people who are behind these decisions are not doing it in the interests of themselves, but are doing it in the interests of soccer. As I said, I can see both arguments. There are people passionate about their club, and personally I’m passionate about soccer as a whole. And I’d like to see it succeed as a whole. So I don’t take the criticism to heart really, or worry about them too much.

I can certainly see why people would be annoyed about how it all happened, but I think people now need to really get on with it and back it and realise that we’re trying to put in place a platform for players from under-sixes to start playing to go all the way through the ranks, play in the BPL, play in the QSL and then move on to the A-League and beyond that. I think a lot of people only see the short term view, whereas I try to look at the overall picture and see that ‘yeah, initially the QSL might have trodden on some toes, but in the end we’re trying to do it for the benefit of the game’. I’m not going to stand here and say that all the criticism was unwarranted....but now we need to realise that we are doing it for the benefit of the game and we’re trying to improve soccer as a whole - and the fact that we’ve got the whole state of Queensland playing in a top level league is fantastic for the game.