Lee won’t tinker with Olympic squad
Sydney Olympic head into their Elimination Final against local rivals Rockdale City Suns on Saturday night at Lambert Park and have stressed they’ll be approaching this game like any other.
“We won’t be doing anything extra at this stage of the season other than keeping the player’s feet on the ground.
“To start tinkering now would not do any good and we’ll look to keeping the continuity going, no heavy work but level heads and maintain the intensity we have built up over the season.”
Grant Lee has coped with the reaction of his squad to what he describes as ‘soft goals’ earlier in the campaign.
“We’ve changed the way our young squad has reacted to allowing soft goals and when things were not going so well but with a young side and a lot of new players it was always a case of being a work in progress.
“We knew the quality was there but it was how we reacted to dominating games without scoring and our confidence and that has improved immensely.
“It’s fair to say we are probably the form team in the league, along with Bonnyrigg, at the moment and we know the match against Rockdale is going to be tough.
“We know their preferred playing style and how they are likely to come at us and they’ve given us a couple of hard games this season already.
“With the likes of Paul Kohler and Paul Reid they have experienced players who can control a game so we’ll need to maintain our confidence and trust ourselves.”
The match is being played on the artificial surface of Lambert Park, home of APIA Leichhardt Tigers, so will this have a bearing on the outcome for the round of 16 Westfield FFA Cup side?
“I think Lambert Park actually suits our style of play and if we can keep on improving it will be an interesting game.
“”Final’s football can be a lottery and we would be very disappointed if we were to go out in our first game, just as any team would, but we’ve started playing well at the right end of the season so we’ll look to keep that run going.
“Bonnyrigg beat us last time out to win the Premiership but I was pleased with the performance as it took them until the 92nd minute to net the winner. That gave us a little extra confidence that we can mix it with the big boys and we certainly gave a good account of ourselves.
“That game was like a final’s match for us although we knew we couldn’t go up or down from fourth spot and the atmosphere was fantastic and we’re looking forward to seeing how far we can go now.”
The venue is Lambert Park on Saturday 23rd August, kick-off 6.00pm and with parking around the ground somewhat hit and miss at times we strongly advise getting there early.
-By Micky Brock
