Southern United is back home and under the roof tonight.
The side will play the Wellington Phoenix under-20s at Forsyth Barr Stadium as it looks to get back on track after its 4-0 loss to Eastern Suburbs on Sunday. That leaves a short turnaround for the team after a poor performance, but it is motivated to put on a good display.
"We’re disappointed. It was probably our worst performance to date and definitely our worst result so far," Danny Ledwith, one of the side’s five Irish imports, said of the weekend’s loss.
"So we were a bit deflated, but [coach] Paul [O’Reilly] talked to us about not letting it affect us too much. As soon as we started training this week, we tried to forget about the game and focus on the next one and we’ve trained pretty well and got our systems pretty sharp."
The Wellington Phoenix under-20s have shown themselves to be more than adequate opposition. They come into the game having won two and drawn one of their five matches, including an impressive 1-0 victory over Auckland City in their last outing. Ledwith said that while the Phoenix had shown itself to be a good side, Southern was hopeful of getting a good result. It is still to register its first win of the season.
"I think we need to hold the ball longer and probably work a bit harder in possession.
"We’ve been trying to put that into practice this week at training. We’ve been doing a lot of tactical work to try to get everyone on the same page, so we’re looking to counter quite quickly and hopefully get some goals on the board."
While there were several niggles among the side, the most serious concerned Eric Molloy, who came on late at the weekend after missing the previous two weeks.
Coach Paul O’Reilly said he was a 50-50 at the moment, and there would possibly be changes in the team. However, he was happy with how the team had responded at training this week.
"There’s nobody sulking here," he said.
"I said last week, the lads are working hard. It’s not for a want of work rate of attitude, they’re working really, really hard.
"We just think we have things we need to learn and things that are not going to change overnight. It’s a long-term approach. It’s going to take us time to learn and progress, but we also think there’s games that we can get results in."
The side remains at the bottom of the table, with its sole point coming from a draw against Waitakere United three weeks ago.
Southern United v Wellington Phoenix under-20
Forsyth Barr Stadium, tonight 6pm
Southern United: Liam Little, Conor O’Keeffe, Cam Higgins, Stephen Last, Jude Fitzpatrick, Michael Hogan, Ross Howard, Danny Ledwith, Sam Collier, Andy Mulligan, Eric Molloy, Riley Anderton, Cam McPhail, Tennessee Kinghorn, Luis Paiva.
Wellington Phoenix under-20: (from) Keegan Smith, Oliver Sail, Jack-Henry Sinclair, Liam Wood, Sam Philip, Jake Williams, Liam Moore, Ben Mata, Sam Gillespie, Luke Johnson, Sarpreet Singh, Joe Bell, Ollie Whyte, Liberato Cacace, Willem Ebbinge, Luke Tongue, Logan Rogerson, Max Mata, Ruairi Cahill-Fluery, Nick Lane.
