Midfielder Leigh Broxham says it’s business as usual for Victory as they prepare for Saturday’s tough trip to New Zealand to take on Wellington at Westpac Stadium.
Midfielder Leigh Broxham says it’s business as usual for Victory as they prepare for Saturday’s tough trip to New Zealand to take on Wellington at Westpac Stadium.
Coming off two consecutive losses, coach Ernie Merrick declared last Thursday night’s match against Central Coast as a must-win. His players responded to his calls and looked to have secured a valuable three points when they took a deserved 2-1 lead, but a bizarre own goal left Victory with just one draw to show for their past three matches.
Broxham admitted it was a bitter pill to swallow, but said the focus quickly shifted to this week’s testing assignment.
“I suppose not too much changes for us, at the time we were disappointed we didn’t come away with three points. Once you come back in for training you’re ready to work for the next weekend and we started concentrating on Wellington straight away,” Broxham said on Tuesday.
“Day to day nothing really changes, when we’ve sort of bred success in the past and we’re used to it I suppose it’s a little bit frustrating that it’s not happening and when we are playing good football we’re not getting results and if we’re not playing that well we get beat, it’s not like we’re scraping through any results or anything.”
In previous years Victory would have already been virtually assured of a finals berth at this point in the season, but this year has been a bit of a struggle with the club recording just four wins from 16 matches.
They still lie in sixth position and Broxham remains confident the team has the ability to challenge for the title.
“I just think if we keep doing what we’re doing … everyone is basically almost fit and we still believe that we’re going to give this year a good crack,” he said.
“There’s still that belief there that we’re going to make the finals and to get back up the top we’re going to have take a massive string of good results for us, but that’s the thing of making finals of six teams that we’re still pretty confident that we’ll be in and around there. Obviously we need to start picking up more wins come this second half of the season.”
A trip to Wellington to take on the Phoenix was mission impossible a few weeks ago with the New Zealand-based club stringing together a record-breaking run of 25 matches without defeat at their home ground.
Brisbane Roar put an end to that earlier this month and Newcastle followed suit with a victory last week and Broxham believes that will play on their minds on Saturday evening.
“Good timing for us. They’ll have that in the back of their minds as well that usually they’re good at home and they need results as well,” he said.
“Teams lift against us and then Wellington are very good at home so it should be an interesting match that we’re up for as well.”
