Winless Sharks drawing on positive attitude
A MANTRA to “stay positive” is keeping the Gold Coast Premier League fire burning at Palm Beach as they chase their first win of the football season away to Mudgeeraba tonight.
After back-to-back losses to begin the new campaign, the Sharks picked up their first point on Friday night with a well-earned 2-2 draw against a red-hot Surfers Paradise side.
They will now travel to Sid Bigg Park at 8.30pm for their Round 3 catch-up game against the winless Wallabies, who showed signs of improvement in Saturday’s 3-2 loss to Broadbeach United.
Palm Beach coach Brett Budwee, who will reclaim his post from Nigel Witton after serving a sideline ban, said the emphasis had been on remaining confident following 3-1 and 3-0 losses to Burleigh Heads and Coomera respectively.
“(I’ve been) just telling the boys to stay positive, stay true to what we believe and the results will come,” Budwee said.
“We try to play a bit of football and the Burleigh and the Coomera games were both very physical games that we ended with 10 men.
“I think in both games we lost a bit of discipline and it sort of worked against us.”
Intertwined with Palm Beach’s sluggish Premier League start has been an FFA Cup run that included a laststart 3-1 win away to Caloundra in Round 3.
Witton said the result against Surfers showed the Sharks were on the right track.
“I thought we played fantastic in the first half,’’ he said.
“Going forward, we created a lot of chances.”
In tonight’s other games, Surfers Paradise host ladderleading Burleigh Heads at 7pm and Coomera play Tweed United at Viney Park at 8.30pm.