Central Coast Mariners defender Storm Roux delivered a rousing press conference on Tuesday morning.
Roux reflected on our first leg performance last week, last season’s special sold out home semi-final and how the Mariners are taking confidence from our two trophies already this season.
“After going down there and getting a result like we did, and putting that performance on, we’re full of confidence that we can get the job done at home.” Roux said.
There is a buzz around the Mariners at the moment, a number of journalists travelled up from Sydney to speak with Roux and Dan Hall in a bonus presser this week, they said ‘all the talk on the radio is about how to get Mariners tickets’ and Roux says it is reminiscent of the Adelaide home semi-final last season.
A huge crowd is expected at Industree Group Stadium, with limited tickets remaining we are well on our way to another sell out crowd.
It reminds me of last season when we had Adelaide in the semi finals at home, 20,000+ people. It’s good to have the stadium buzzing and the fans packed in.
Storm Roux on a potential sell out on Saturday.
With AFC Cup business wrapped up in Oman last week, Mark Jackson has a rare, full week of training with the squad ahead of Saturday.
“We had a lot of travel and games throughout the week, we’ve been resilient backing it up week after week but an extra little break helps.” Roux said.
Roux was asked what the team can take from last weekend’s result at Allianz, and how previous semi-final experience will benefit the Mariners.
“[The first leg] gives us confidence in what we’re doing and our game plan. I thought we were the better team and they’re a tough team to play, we’ve had some struggles with them but we’ve proved we can match up against them and get a result.”
“Experience is valuable, we have a young team and for a lot of them [last season] was their first semi final and to go and win the grand final, the boys who were here last season have that experience and know what to expect, how to play in front of a big crowd and having the pressure of being at home and getting the job done, it’s only good experience for the young boys.”
“It helps with game planning, they’re going to be a lot more attacking so we need to deal with that and work out how they’re going to come at us. We are a great attacking team but our defensive structure has been unbelievable this season and the results show that.”
“It should be a great game and great game for the neutral as well so hopefully we get the job done.”
“We always keep a level head. I think they were both red cards so I don’t think they can complain too much. I don’t think we got under their skin, we just stuck to our game plan and what happened, happened.”
“We probably should’ve pushed on a bit more and got a few more goals with the two man advantage but that didn’t happen so we’re just going to have to get the job done at home.”
“It should be a close game, we’re both in the semi finals for a reason, we’re both really good footballing teams. We’re going to come up with a game plan to nullify them and get the result.
“We’ve won two trophies in the last week and a half so we’re full of confidence. If you told us at the start of the season that we’d be in this position we wouldn’t have believed you but we kept the confidence and the belief and we deserve to be where we are.”
“We’re fully confident in ourselves that we’re the best team in the league so we need to prove that now by getting to and winning the grand final.”
Roux was asked if there was added pressure on the Mariners as the reigning Champions, plus our recent Premiers and AFC Cup success.
“I guess so, naturally. We dealt with that last season and won the whole thing so like I said before, a lot of our players have experience in winning big games. We’ve got two trophies already and we did that with a lot of pressure. The Adelaide game, we needed to win and then the AFC Cup Final.”
“We’re full of confidence, we believe we can do it and we believe we can win the Grand Final when we get there.”
Finally, Roux was asked how high the Mariners rank in terms of the greatest A-League teams of all time, compared to top teams of the past such as previous Sydney teams and Ange Postecoglu’s Roarcelona.
“We’ve got to be up there, not only have we won the AFC Cup and the Premiership, we’re doing it at the same time and I don’t think anyone really understands how hard it is with the travel, backing up games, getting results and playing under pressure so it’s got to be up there as one of the greatest A-League teams of all time in my opinion.”
You can watch Storm’s full press conference here, via aleagues.com.
