Murray United will take a leaf out of the NPL playbook and look to be more ruthless in defence.
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The Border’s NPL1 side travels to Melbourne this weekend to take on western conference cellar dwellers Sunshine George Cross, looking for points and hell-bent on limiting the opposition’s chances.
Defender Sean Pye said they may also look to modify their attacking game plan.
“Obviously we don’t know much about them coming out of the other conference and this being the first and only time we’ll meet but what we do know is that the ground is a bit rough down there and we might have to adjust our style,” he said
“It may see us be more direct in the way we push the ball forward.”
Pye said cynical challenges that gave away free kicks and denied attackers any space were part and parcel of premier league soccer.
“It’s a point we touched on at training this week, the Melbourne sides don’t think twice about it where as traditionally it is not a part of the AWFA competition where most of us have come from,” he said.
“But this week we will defend a little higher up, if we have we’ll incur the foul in the middle of the pitch rather than deeper, where it’s more dangerous.
“Across the whole team we probably need to be more ruthless, more aggressive and that has been part of the learning process.
“Compared to the start of the year there is no doubt we are more aggressive now.”
Pye was also full of praise for caretaker coach James Coutts
“As a player Coutts had a lot of respect from the playing group, so the transition into the coaching role has probably been made easier because of that and like (former coach) Mick Richards he won’t tolerate below par efforts,” he said.
“It is pretty much the same structure we had under Mick and while James made some tweaks, he has only been in the role a week.”
Under 20’s defender Alex West is one of two players in the squad to be a stats leader this week.
While striker Lionel Masudi still sits on top of the goal scorers table, West has a less dubious honour leading the yellow card count.
"Lionel is having a cracker of a season so far and hopefully he continues with that form this week,” West said.
"Finishing second in our first year in the competition would be great but we also want to continue to play good football – playing well is just as important as getting the result.
“At the moment seniors has a full squad, it means we get players back and at the same time under-16 players like Connor Caponnechia and Lewis Greenwood are getting their chances.”
