Steven McGarry believes there were a lot of positives to be taken out of the opening round defeat to Adelaide United and can respond with a solid performance against Newcastle Jets this week at Hunter Stadium.
Steven McGarry believes there were a lot of positives to be taken out of the opening round defeat to Adelaide United and can respond with a solid performance against Newcastle Jets this week at Hunter Stadium.
“I think on the whole we played reasonably well and there are just a couple of things we need to tighten up in defensive areas,” McGarry said.
“We had a game plan to sit and be compact and hit Adelaide on the break which I thought we did several times, so there were a lot of positives from that aspect.”
The 34-year-old central midfielder and the rest of the Glory squad have already reviewed Newcastle’s match against Sydney and found some similarities between the two matches.
“They actually didn’t play too bad. They played some nice football and their game is pretty tight. They had a couple of defensive lapses (against Sydney FC) as well so we are expecting a very tough game,” McGarry said.
McGarry said there were “no alarm bells ringing” from the Adelaide game, but Glory will need to pick themselves up, learn from their mistakes, continue to work as a team and make the most of their chances.
“You can see parts of the game where we had them on the back foot and we had a few chances ourselves in the first half.”
“We defend as a team and attack as a team so I don’t think you could single anyone out but defensively as a whole we could have done better.”
“We need to be more clinical – especially away from home.”
Although the squad is significantly different from last season, McGarry believes their strong record at Hunter Stadium will hold them in good stead for a positive performance.
“We-ve done reasonably well up there but, like I said, every away game is going to be tough. They will be desperate to get a win under their belt, especially being at home but We’ll be quietly confident,” McGarry said.
