Dandenong Thunder must regain its place in the NPL top flight via the playoffs, and coach Huss Skenderovic believes his side are ready to do it.
They thought they had done it, but when news broke of Damian Iaconis’s late equaliser, Dandenong Thunder’s promotion to the NPL top flight was whisked away in devastating fashion.
Kingston City topped the NPL2 East ladder by a meagre point, leaving the Thunder in second and with the uphill battle of gaining promotion via the playoffs.
Coach Huss Skenderovic, who was appointed at the beginning of the season, says his side have bounced back from the weekend’s events and are well positioned to perform on Saturday.
“The [players] were a little bit disheartened but we bounced back pretty quickly,” Skenderovic said.
“We’re still very focused on the next game coming up and the week has been very positive… and we treat it like a normal game.”
Thunder must beat North Geelong Warriors at JL Murphy Reserve in Port Melbourne on Saturday and defeat Richmond SC the following week to secure promotion.
Despite the added pressure the play-off brings, Skenderovic is treating the North Geelong Warriors clash like a normal game.
“We’ve had three very big games in the last three weeks and we didn’t treat them any differently,” he said.
“We haven’t changed anything, we’re not going to change the way we analyse the game, we’re not changing the way we prepare… it’s just another game of football to us.”
“We believe in [our] principles and if we’ve got the ability to apply them, which I believe we will, then I’m pretty confident that we can do a good job.”
Despite beating North Geelong away from home back in June, Skenderovic says the circumstances are very different this time around.
“They were missing a couple of key players and we had a man sent off quite early in the game and we battled with ten men and we defended very solidly,” he said.
“I know Micky [Colina] well and I know his team will be very structured and the boys will come out [to play] because it’s a big game for both teams.”
Brandon Barnes will be pivotal to the Thunder’s chances on Saturday, having shown a consistent ability to score goals all season with 41 in 28 rounds, but Skenderovic says it’s not all about him.
“Brandon is a big game player, a top quality player… but it’s not just about him, it’s about our team and there’s a build up phase, a consolidating phase, a penetrating phase which happens for him to score goals.”
“As important as he is to our team, there are another ten players that support him and provide for him.”
Of those, many came as a result of a signing spree at the beginning of the season.
Skenderovic brought in 14 new players to add character to the squad, and it has certainly paid off.
“The key ingredient we wanted for the building phase was good characters, not necessarily looking at technical ability or the physicality of certain players,” he said.
“We had a lot of players that actually wanted to come and join our team, but we made a strong emphasis that when you come into Dandenong Thunder, part of a new vision that we had was that characters need to be good, they need to be there for the right reasons.”