United to counter attack-minded Wolves
Manly United host Wollongong Wolves at Cromer Park on Saturday night and striker Jack Fulton is expecting a torrid battle for his back four. Yet he also said this: they are up for it.
“Wollongong’s front four are strong, especially if we give them time and space. They will come at us quickly. But I have faith in our back line to do their job. They’ve done it all year,” Fulton said.
Not all year. There was one game they did not – a 5-0 loss to Sydney United 58 on May 2nd. Yet since that outlier defensive failure, United appears to have righted the ship. A 1-1 draw with Marconi was followed by a confidence-building 1-0 away win against Mt Druitt Rangers and a 6-0 FFA Cup romp over Banksia Tigers at Cromer Park on Tuesday night.
Fulton said the team’s plan is to continue on their winning ways. “Whether it’s winning our last league game on Friday to winning a round game of the FFA Cup, we obviously want to keep the winning mentality going. Our performances have been solid all-round. I can’t single out anyone in particular. Even our boys coming off the bench have been making an impact.”
Fulton said head coach Adam Griffiths and coaching staff have been stressing the importance of pressure and winning the ball.
“We’ve been working on press and getting the ball back immediately so we can play in [Wolves’] half. We can take that from our game against Mt Druitt, the willingness to win the ball in the final third and keep it there.
“The coaching staff brought it up at half time [at Popondetta Park]. Once we got that down pat in the second half we were on our game.”
Wollongong’s other strength is counter-attack, according to Fulton, “so it goes without saying we want to win the ball back when we lose it even more against them.
“In attack we did really well on the wings against them last time. Getting our backs to overlap created a lot of space,” Fulton said.
Kick-off is on Saturday at 7pm at Cromer Park.