Sandringham SC’s Shaun Parton is confident that his side is up for a crunch Finals meeting with Box Hill United, despite having ceded home advantage to the defending champions.
“If you’re going to be honest, everyone knows over the years, anyone who’s been involved in the Premier League, they know that Box Hill’s been up there for a long time,” he said.
“It’s a big ask but it’s a challenge. That’s what sport is about. You would have liked to play at home, but you’ve got to play the cards you’re dealt. We’ve got to go to Box Hill, there’s no point of whinging about it, we’ve got to go there and try to do the best again.”
The Sandringham coach had just seen his team fall to league leaders South Melbourne in a surprisingly comprehensive 1-3 defeat to end the home and away season, and was pulling no punches as he sought to explain the result.
“Honestly right know I don’t know, I’d probably have to think about it a bit more but I don’t think we had a good player [out there today],” Parton said.
“I don’t think anyone played really well today. Normally you have a couple of players that play below par, but we had a lot of them today. Let’s hope the bad one’s out of the system.”
Parton seemed happy to give his opponents their due though, admitting that South Melbourne had done well to finally beat his team for the first time in three meetings this season.
“I think in the first half they were the much better team and probably should have been more than two up if I’m going to be honest,” he said.
“I think we might even have shaded the second half perhaps, but they killed us in the first half, they were very good.”
With the regular season done and dusted, the Sandringham coach was once again keen to put Sunday’s game behind him and talk up his side’s chances.
“Psychologically, [the loss] might impact on the girls, but they’ve been there before, they’ve played Finals quite a few years now so hopefully they can use the experience they’ve gained over the last few years,” Parton said.
“We’ve done well enough this year that we’ve earned a second chance, and that was always what you wanted to do. So good luck to South, they get a week off. We’d like to play them again, it’d be good.
“Going to play Box Hill at Box Hill is probably the biggest challenge though, isn’t it? Are the girls up for it? We’ll see on Friday night.”