A win for Murray United during its trip to Springvale on Saturday will secure it a top-five finish.
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Also fresh in the mind is the Border outfit’s 3-2 loss to Springvale at home in round 14 – a clash they led 2-0.
Murray coach James Coutts said the last two performances against Dandenong City and Moreland Zebras were very encouraging and will give his side confidence it can return the favour at Springvale.
“We’ve played a couple of times down there and had one positive result,” Coutts said.
“It’s just a very hard place to go to, it’s a difficult surface and conditions, the wind picks there, so it can get really difficult.
“It’s the last away game of the season, so we’re hoping to go down there and hopefully cap off a pretty good away record for the year.”
Coutts added due to the length of the season, a number of players have played big minutes and are carrying knocks, but most will be fit.
Zac Walker is 50-50 after missing last weekend with illness, while centre back Ryan Giles has been sick all week.
“There has been sickness going through the camp because it’s that time of year, but in terms of fitness, there’s no injuries or concerns,” Coutts said.
“Getting Nick Teichmann some game time in the 20s was valuable on the weekend, so it will hopefully be a strong squad heading to Springvale.”
Nebojsa Pejic scored a stunning goal and caused Murray lot of problems in their previous meeting with Springvale, but Coutts is confident there best will be more than good enough.
“Physically, they’re very strong, so set plays are going to be key, as they were against Moreland Zebras,” he said.
“As we showed against Moreland, we can cut teams apart when we play our football and I expect us to play the same way on the weekend with a bit more cutting edge in the final third.
“We create a lot of opportunities and get into good positions, it’s just something as we players we need to continually work on.
“If you look at Gonzalo’s (Freddi) performance the other day, he covered every blade of grass, his touch was great, his interplay was great, but he just couldn’t find the back of the net.
“I believe in our strikers and our attacking department and we need to make sure we back them and they need to make sure they work hard as hard as they can.”