Melbourne might boast two wins over top-of-the-table Adelaide this season, but going into Tuesday night’s blockbuster at Telstra Dome, both coach and captain believe that record will count for little when the game gets underway.
Melbourne might boast two wins over top-of-the-table Adelaide this season, but going into Tuesday night’s blockbuster at Telstra Dome, both coach and captain believe that record will count for little when the game gets underway.
Melbourne edged out the Reds 1-0 in their Round 4 encounter at Telstra Dome before scoring a come-from-behind 3-2 win in Adelaide in Round 10. While Adelaide currently leads Melbourne by one point on the table, you would think the fact that Victory has those two wins as well as home advantage on Tuesday could give them a psychological edge.
But Kevin Muscat, who has scored three goals against the Reds this year, said that while that might be used as motivation in the warm-up, he doesn’t expect it to be a factor at kick-off.
“Going into the game, you’ll speak about it and draw a little confidence from it but come kick off, it doesn’t mean a thing. They’ve had a great season, they’ve been in very good form. We’ve pin-pointed a couple of areas where we think we can get some joy and we’ll go out to try and achieve that,” he said.
Coach Ernie Merrick said the two results were just an indication of Melbourne’s good form this season and didn’t point to any particular advantage Victory have over the Reds.
“I think we’ve just been playing good football this year, we’ve been consistent all year and playing good quality football and being at home for this match is an added bonus,” he said.
Merrick knows that this match will present one of his team’s biggest challenges of the season. Both teams are coming off short breaks for this match, but the Melbourne coach does not believe that will affect his opponents any more than it will affect his team.
“There’s no doubt they’ve had a great year, Aurelio has done a great job. They are top of the league and have done well in the Champions League, so it gives us a big challenge,” he said.
The quick back-up will see Merrick keep his selection options open until game day as he waits to see that his players have recovered sufficiently from Friday night’s win over Queensland.
“The boys are feeling good about where they are at the moment and looking forward to playing one of our biggest rivals,” he said.
“We’ll add two to the squad, but I won’t say who’ll drop out of the squad yet, I might leave that decision for a while but Grant Brebner and J-Lo (Lopez) will join the squad and it’s great to have players of that quality. We definitely want all three points so we won’t have many defenders, if any, on the bench.”
