Following our historic come-from-behind victory over Crown Legacy FC on Friday night, Head Coach Chris Nugent shared his reaction.
Nugent was asked about the character shown by the team, the debuts of Luke Husakiwsky and Yuval Cohen and much more.
Here's everything he had to say:
on what the result and performance says about the team's character:
"It just reinforces what we know. The guys will always find a way to fight all the way to the end. We know we can score at any minute of the game. We have that positive belief that we can compete and create chances. It could've been easy for us to give up at two goals down, but the guys continued to fight and put good plays together. All four goals showcased some of the combinations and structure of how we press and deliver on set pieces, which shows the variety of ways we can impact the game. The character was huge. The guys were willing to push into what they're good at and embrace our identity."
on what the win does for the belief heading into a playoff run:
"It's huge. It gets us close to that playoff spot and we're still pushing for that home playoff game. To win three of the last three games is big, and to get two points before that. Getting 11 of the last 12 points available is a great run. We need the momentum back at home against a team we're familiar with. To come on the road against a tough team—they're got some players that have a lot of first-team experience—and find a way to fight back and put on that performance was huge."
on the impact of the five second-half substitutions he made:
"It's not always necessarily about the changes; it's sometimes just the momentum. At half-time we felt we had to be a little bit cleaner and more aggressive shooting in and around the box. We had the ball in good areas in the first half and we just seemed a little bit hesitant to find that strike or the final ball. We made some changes to counter how their outside backs were going to be really high, so our wingers changing the picture that they were going to see on the ball was a big one. And then it was just about being more sound defensively. We knew it was a must-win game for them, so we needed to secure the midfield a bit more and exploiting the spaces they left was the big factor and we saw that for some of the goals."
on what pleased him most about the performance:
"It's hard to remember when you're so emotional through it! I was most pleased with the collectiveness shown by the team and the fighting spirit. We've won so many games where we could have easily folded and disappeared and you see that with teams everywhere—they get a little bit of adversity and they don't fight together—but we showed that we can have players playing in different positions, different organization of players and the guys will find ways to fight and create chances. The professionalism was really good when we went 3-2 up and how we defended."
