Crash for City in NPL
THE dreams of a second NPL Queensland premiership have gone for Gold Coast City after a tough campaign finally caught up with them on Saturday night.
City, who won the NPLQ championship-grand final double in 2014, crashed out of this season’s title race when beaten 3-0 by Western Pride in a semi-final at Duncan McKenna Field.
Now City have to regroup and get bodies and minds right for their only remaining target – a quarter-final of the Westfield FFA Cup.
City will know late tomorrow night who they will be playing in the Cup quarters. The draw will be done immediately after the four remaining round of 16 matches are completed.
City played a marathon FFA Cup match on Wednesday night – they beat Moreton Bay United 1-0 in extra time – and the effort showed against the Pride.
“You could see after half an hour that their energy levels dropped,” Piddick said.
“Then we were stung at the end because we were throwing numbers forward.
“Now we’ll have a few days off, regroup and hopefully organise a few practice matches to get us ready for the Cup.”
It hurt City to lose star striker Sam Smith 30 minutes in because of a hamstring strain.
Piddick has no idea how long the NPLQ’s leading scorer will be sidelined but hopes he will be back for the FFA Cup engagement.
Word was that City would also be losing Nik Mirkovic, Roman Hofmann and Oskar Dillon for that match, although Piddick said only Mirkovic was to miss.
And the coach agreed that the one bright spot to come from Saturday night’s result is that City now have only one series to target now.
“We have another chance to create history by becoming the first Queensland side to make the semi-finals of the Cup,” Piddick said.
“We’re already the only Queensland side to have made it to the quarter-finals (in 2014).”
While one Piddick brother bowed out of the NPLQ title race, Grae’s younger brother Adam lived to fight another day when Moreton Bay United, the team City beat 1-0 in the midweek FFA Cup tie, upset Brisbane Strikers 3-1 at Perry Park.