Perth Glory defender Jamie Coyne says the team is quickly putting last Friday’s heartbreaking 3-3 draw with North Queensland behind them as they gear up for Melbourne Victory on Saturday night.
Perth Glory defender Jamie Coyne says the team is quickly putting last Friday’s heartbreaking 3-3 draw with North Queensland behind them as they gear up for Melbourne Victory on Saturday night.
The Glory were just a minute away from a perfect start to the new season in front of a Hyundai A-League record crowd of over 16,000 people at nib Stadium when Fury defender Chris Grossman spoiled the party, nodding home an injury-time corner to give the visitors a share of the spoils.
The result continued a trend over recent seasons of the Glory conceding late goals, leading to coach Dave Mitchell sometimes questioning his team’s concentration levels deep in the game.
But former skipper Coyne didn’t think this was an issue this time around, saying the club was simply undone by a quality goal that could have happened at any stage of the match.
“It was a great header,” declared Coyne.
“The guys delivered the ball into the right area with pace and the guy who scored, attacked it.”
“Sometimes you’ve got to hold your hand up and say ‘it’s just the way it goes’.”
“It’s very frustrating but obviously you’ve got to pick yourself up and being the first game of the season, you know everyone’s hopes and spirits are still high.”
“So we’re getting on with it and Melbourne had a similar game on the weekend so they’ll probably have a similar mindset, so (we’ll) just focus on this game that’s coming up.”
Despite bravely playing with an illness, Coyne was part of a makeshift central defensive pairing with another club veteran in Jamie Harnwell, as regular centre halves Andy Todd, Chris Coyne and Josh Mitchell are unavailable.
Todd has resumed training, however, after suffering a knee injury while Chris Coyne is on loan in China and will not be available for a few months.
The club is also still waiting to hear on whether Mitchell and fellow new recruit Michael Baird will be granted international transfer clearances from former club, Romania’s Universitatea Craiova.
The Glory had hoped the situation would be resolved by now as another former Craiova player, Mariner Joshua Rose, has had a provisional clearance approved by FIFA.
But as of Wednesday, Perth is still waiting to hear from Football Federation Australia, which has been in contact with FIFA over the case.
With numbers light on in defence once again, Coyne is aware that any defensive mistakes in this encounter will be pounced on by Melbourne, who beat the Glory 6-2 at Etihad Stadium last season.
“They’re a great footballing side and they’ve got a good passing team and they’re very well organised,” Coyne said.
“So they’ve got a great mixture … and even on the weekend they were 2-0 down (against Sydney FC) and they’ve come back into the game in the space of seven minutes.”
“So that’s the danger of them, they might not be having the best day but they’re still capable of scoring a hell of a lot of goals and that’s something that we’re obviously aware of.”
“But we’re well organised and we stick to our game plan, hopefully we’ll be able to limit their chances and come away with the draw or win.”
