Glory Head Coach Adam Griffiths is relishing the prospect of taking on a strong Adelaide United side in Bunbury on Sunday as the club’s pre-season campaign ramps up (kick-off at 12pm, tickets available HERE).
Having drawn with Melbourne City behind closed doors in their first pre-season hit-out last weekend, the men in purple will face another stern test against a Reds side that finished second in the A-League last term.
Glory will then tackle Adelaide for a second time in Northam on Saturday 3 October and Griffiths feels that two games against a quality opponent will stand his charges in good stead as the countdown to the Round One clash with Macarthur FC continues.
“Adelaide’s a well-run club and they have really talented players and these are the types of games you want in pre-season because they ask you questions,” he said.
“So you can improve in prep for the first game of the season and the season in general.
“It’s a chance to see where we’re at and we haven’t had that plethora of games being available because of the logistics perspective, so these games are so important and it’s an exciting thing for the players to play in them as we’ve had such a long break.
“We’re now into the back end of pre-season… the medical staff, the coaching staff and the playing group are really excited about playing that first game [Round One] and these pre-season games get us ready for that.
“And more importantly, the fans must be itching to come out and support their Perth Glory team.”
Griffiths went on to reflect upon the whole of pre-season to date and in particular, the friendly draw with Melbourne City.
“From our perspective, the preparation has been great,” he said.
“There’s been a significant change from the football club in terms of what we have here in the gym and the training pitch and all of those small things add up, as well as the squad development.
“We’re starting to bring in players that fit the playing model and we’re executing that on the training pitch every day.
“What I need the players to have is a clear understanding of what we want them to do and to go out there and perform.
“We’ve been working at a high intensity and working on areas of our game that we need to improve for the season coming.
“We put out a younger team [against Melbourne City] and that was a real positive because the boys really stood up against the high intensity of Melbourne City and matched that.
“That was the real positive takeaway.
“I feel that there are a lot of areas in which we can improve, but the good things were that we created a lot of chances and we defended well and limited them to a few chances.
“So lots of positive takeaways, but next up against Adelaide will be a new challenge for us.”
In terms of early team news ahead of the Adelaide games, Sam Sutton will be unavailable as he is currently away on international duty with New Zealand, but the Head Coach confirmed that most of the rest of his squad are likely to get minutes under their belts.
“We’re starting to focus on what is our strongest team available right now,” he said.
“We do have a few players who have returned to training but not to being fully available for games, like Jaiden Kucharski., Tom Lawrence and Gio De Abreu… but they’ll travel with us and we’ll select the strongest team we have.
“We haven’t decided if Tom will get minutes in the first game [in Bunbury], but the goal is that he will get minutes in the second one in Northam and he will travel with us and we’ll make that decision closer to gameday.
“He’s tracking really well and all our players that are in those areas that are moving back into full training are tracking really well.
“We’re happy with how they’re progressing and are confident that they’ll be ready for Round One.”
Sunday’s clash at Hay Park will mark the fourth year in a row that Glory Men have taken a pre-season fixture to Bunbury and Griffiths is keenly aware of the wider significance of these games.
“We’re a one state team, so going to these regional areas is so important for us as a football club,” he said.
“It’s so important that we connect with these regional communities and that those fans who travel such long distances to see us play, we give back to them, connect with them and show them that they’re really important to us.”
As far as the game itself is concerned, Griffiths is expecting the fans to have plenty to get excited about.
“I think it’s going to be a competitive game and both teams will try and play football,” he said.
“You never know; it’s a regional game, so the atmosphere might be slightly different, the pitch size might be slightly different and both teams aren’t aware of those kinds of perameters.
“But I think it’ll be a game played in a good spirit and both teams will look to attack”.
United will travel across the border in confident mood having opened their AFC Champions League 2 campaign with a comfortable 3-0 home win over Hong Kong side Tai Po last midweek.
The Reds qualified for Asia courtesy of their second-place finish in the A-League last season, winning 12 of their 26 games before being eliminated by eventual Champions Auckland FC in the Finals.
Luka Jovanovic was their top scorer, but he subsequently completed an off-season move to MLS outfit San Jose Earthquakes, meaning that the likes of young gun Brody Burkitt, Spaniard Juan Muniz and skipper Craig Goodwin may be expected to shoulder more of the goalscoring burden this year.
At the other end of the pitch, meanwhile, Dutch import Joshua Smits established himself as one of the A-League’s best goalkeepers in what was his debut season for the Reds last year and highly-rated 20-year-old Panagiotis Kikianis again looks set to be a cornerstone of their defence.
Airton Andrioli’s men did the double over Glory last term, but of the 29 overall ALM clashes between the two sides here in WA, the men in purple have won 12 to United’s nine.
The two teams will go head-to-head once again at HBF Park in Round 3 of the new season.
Match Details
Regional Pre-Season Tour Game One
Perth Glory v Adelaide United
Hay Park, Bunbury
Sunday 27 September 2026
Kick-off: 12pm
(pic courtesy of Kia Bako-Kirkpatrick)
#ONEGlory
Match Preview: “These are the types of games you want in pre-season because they ask you questions” – Griff
