Central Coast Mariners hosted A-League newcomers Auckland FC in a behind closed doors friendly at Our Paradise on Wednesday afternoon.
The Mariners led 2-1 at half time thanks to goals from Miguel Di Pizio and Mikael Doka, before Logan Rogerson got one back for the visitors with the last kick of the first half.
After both sides made wholesale changes throughout the second half, Auckland grabbed a late equaliser to make the final score 2-2.
Line-Up
Starting XI: Warshawsky, Roux, Kaltak, Paull, Mauragis, Tapp (C), McCalmont, Doka, Di Pizio, Feijao, Edmondson.
Substitutions:
46′ ON: Pavlesic, Kuzevski, Herrington & Kuol. OFF: Warshawsky, Roux, Paull & Edmondson
60′ ON: Brandtman. OFF: Tapp
75′ ON: Wilson. OFF: Feijao.
85′ ON: Eames. OFF: McCalmont.
First Half
The Mariners started brightly, with new partnerships forming all over the field, the new left-side duo of Lucas Mauragis and Vitor Feijao showed particularly promising signs.
They combined early on with Mauragis showing neat skill and advancing forward before finding Feijao out wide, Mauragis continued his run into the box to get on the end of the Brazilian’s cross but his shot was blocked.
Minutes later the the Mariners took the lead, Feijao found Di Pizio in the box who shifted the ball onto his left and finished clinically across Alex Paulsen into the bottom corner.
It was 2-0 just after the half-hour mark with another clinical finish that gave Paulsen no chance. The Mariners won the ball in the Auckland half before Doka danced past Tommy Smith in the box and slotted home.
With the very last kick of the first half, Auckland got a goal back through Rogerson who pounced to convert from close range after a deflected cross.
Second half
The second half saw wholesale changes from both sides, with a number of Mariners’ youngsters and new signings gaining valuable minutes.
Bailey Brandtman saw plenty of the ball in midfield whilst the youngest member of the squad, Haine Eames, also came on in the middle of the park, looking calm and composed in possession.
The most the Mariners threatened a third was when Doka cut inside and fired at goal, with Hiroki Sakai making a brave block.
An evenly-contested friendly would end level after a late equaliser from Auckland, but Mark Jackson and the squad are able to take lots of positives from another pre-season outing as we gear up to the start of the 24/25 season, with ACLE action now less than a month away.
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🗣 Jacko: “It was a good workout for the team.”
“Overall, it was a good workout for the team.” Jacko said, post-match.
“These kind of games are really beneficial to us as coaches. We can experiment with different ideas that we’ve been looking at over the off-season. We put that forward to the players today, that we wanted to do something different.”
“The game has given us a lot of answers and helps us with the direction we want to go in, leading into an important campaign for the club.
“As a staff, we are relatively happy with where we are in pre season. Of course, there are areas we need to focus our attention to, elements of physical, technical and tactical aspects of our game which we need to enhance. We are working on these in every session whilst building our togetherness and understanding.
“Pre-season is about building fitness, developing physically, building relationships on the pitch and giving clarity and understanding around how we want to play. We have structures in how we play and we’ve explored different ways within that, but ultimately we have principles of how we want to play and they never change.
“It’s about developing consistency and in particular for new players coming in, understanding what those principles are and how they need to be performed consistently. We’ve got strategies in place to do that.
“This pre-season is also an opportunity for us to look more in depth at younger players from the academy, they are a big part of the football club and how we want to move forward, we want to enhance those pathways throughout the club and their exposure to first team football is vital to their development.”
