Having two weeks to reflect on the team’s 4-0 home loss to Central Coast Mariners has been a sobering experience for Melbourne Victory defender Matthew Kemp.
Having two weeks to reflect on the team’s 4-0 home loss to Central Coast Mariners has been a sobering experience for Melbourne Victory defender Matthew Kemp.
While the timing of the FIFA match day break at the mid-way point of the season would have been welcomed at several clubs as an opportunity to regroup, Kemp’s preference would have been to keep going.
“To be honest, I would rather have played after the last result,” said Kemp.
“When you take a heavy loss like that you just want to get back out there and set it straight.”
“It’s probably not the best time but … it is what it is and we’re just looking forward to this week.”
Victory made good use of their break from playing by stepping up their training load in the first week before easing off over the past seven days ahead of Saturday night’s assignment against Brisbane Roar at Suncorp Stadium.
“It was a hard week physically because we weren’t playing a game on the weekend,” said Kemp.
“Mind you, a lot of players did end up playing for the youth team, but for the rest of us it was to keep that intensity up and get some extra conditioning in the legs and then it lightened up this week.”
“As hard as it was, it was probably exactly what we needed.”
The 29-year-old said that while Victory can take plenty of confidence from the club’s excellent record – four wins, one draw, one loss – in Brisbane, the Roar gave Melbourne a hard time in both of this season’s previous meetings – a 3-3 draw and 2-1 home win – both at Etihad Stadium.
“In this league anyone can beat anyone,” said Kemp.
“We’re going to have to play well to get any sort of result, it’s always tough up there, always hot and they’ve got a lot of players than can do us some damage.”
“We’re going to have to go there switched on and put right everything that went wrong last home game.”
“We’re really hurting from that game and … we’ll be fired up for it.”
