Central Coast Mariners take on Melbourne Victory for a place in Grand Final showpiece

So, here we are, the finals are upon us Central Coast Mariners fans at last. Tomorrow we host Melbourne Victory at fortress Bluetongue in the first of our knockout finals. Unlike previously, with this years altered finals format, if we’re not able to capitalise on our chance tomorrow, it will also be our last!

We had the week off but with our side playing in the Asian Champions League at home last week and in China this week, it doesn’t really seem like we’ve had a break at all. Importantly, the players have! After putting away Guizhou Renhe at Bluetongue last week, many of our more experienced first team players were rested and reserved from the long trip to China. While we didn’t get the result we might have hoped for over there, we certainly made a decent impression and I don’t buy into the views of some that our narrow loss in China will affect the confidence of our team tomorrow. Seven players didn’t make the trip and those that did were generally the younger boys in our team. The players who remained behind, and let’s face it they’re the majority of the first team, will remain riding high after they performed superbly to take the points when Guizhou visited last week.

So we go into the match confident, while on the other side of the halfway line our competitor Melbourne Victory will find it next to impossible to come here with confidence after their last visit. A proper thumping is what I would call that visit to Bluetongue and they’ll need all of their best form to avoid a repeat. While the Victory have been talking up their result in last week’s final and refusing to accept luck played a role, and of course it is only the result which matters now, to suggest they beat anything other than a desperately unlucky but dominant Perth Glory would be wrong to me.

I look forward to this one because we’ve established a close rivalry with the Victory this year and they have some wonderfully talented stars in their side. I’m sure they will provide excellent entertainment tomorrow afternoon to hopefully help attract a decent crowd. Oh yes, the crowd. Regardless of the reasons why this Sunday is a terrible time for an A-League final, and ignoring the obvious advantages of the timing of this fixture in terms of the Mariners players’ ability to recuperate after their long trip to China, I hope, without being super confident, we are able to attract a reasonable crowd to this game.

The selected time slot conflicts with local football fixtures, the tickets are incredibly overpriced, it’s been poorly albeit persistently marketed and it’s clearly timed most of all to avoid conflicts with our Broadcaster’s other products. Additionally, for the away fans, there is no possibility of getting home from the game before work on Monday. All of these lead me to believe if we’re able to get a crowd of around 11-12 thousand to the game, I’ll be happy. In my opinion Saturday night would have been the best compromise. While that would have reduced the number of days of recovery for the players returning from China, it would have limited the two day difference in turnaround times before the grand final to one and added to the fan attraction in a variety of ways, leading to a much greater likelihood of a big crowd.

Regardless, the game is tomorrow and hopefully Central Coast fans will show their support for their team by stumping up the admission price and encouraging their friends to do the same. The fact is, we have a quality team of stars here on the coast and Melbourne Victory’s stars like Marco Rojas and Archie Thompson will also provide plenty of value to those who attend. For the Mariners, the Golden Boot Daniel McBreen should be rested and fired up for a big one. Bernie Ibini made the trip to China but his game time was limited so I expect he will be in great shape for the game. Josh Rose and Pedj Bojic (our flying wing backs) will also make their returns to the team at the right time for the Mariners. With our combination of youth and experience in the middle of the backline and the best goalkeeper in the A-League we should be in great shape to capture a clean sheet. Let’s not forget the man some would argue is the best player in the A-League (although under-rated by most), Michael McGlinchey who should be champing at the bit to pull the strings in the midfield and who has every bit of the class and elusive skill of anyone else in the competition.

This is a finals match and I don’t think it’s too likely we’ll see the type of goal frenzy we saw earlier in the season when these teams met at Bluetongue. We will see a tight and patient encounter but when the dust settles on a night of wonderful entertainment, I think the Mariners will have the result they need to move to the next finals step and take on the Western Sydney Wanderers at Allianz next Sunday in our fourth Grand Final.

My Prediction is the Mariners by two.

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