Heat out to turn it up one more notch
JACOB GRAMS jacob.grams@news.com.au THE pressure is on for season 2017 but FNQ Heat captain Jamie Carroll says as long as his side can enjoy their time playing for each other on the pitch, they will go one better.
While the NPL Queensland regular season lasts the best part of six months, the ultimate test of those credentials comes tonight against Gold Coast City in a rematch of the 2016 semi-final.
Carroll said the reality was that the Heat had nothing to show for last year’s “success”, which would make it even harder to go one better.
“We didn’t win anything last year but we did get a lot of success and did win a lot of games and I think the worst thing about it is people are going to be wanting to beat us from day one,” he said.
“Being the least favourite team of the competition last year and going through to the grand final makes us big threats this year and people will come here to compete and to beat us.
“Obviously we’re putting a bit of pressure on ourselves from the results from last year but we’ve got to put that out of our heads and start fresh and hopefully get a good start to the season.”
At the other end of the field, Ari Isman said he was confident new backline teammates Chris Sullivan and Shigeki Ono were on the same page going into Round 1.
Defence was the cornerstone of Tim Campbell’s game plan last season and they will need to be up to the task against a Gold Coast side with threats across the park.
“We’ve got to defend from the front, back to me being at the back, as well with the boys around me; we’ve always had a solid defensive unit and this year will be no different,” he said.
“Obviously we made the grand final last year, which was a great achievement, but we want to go one better and obviously we’ve got a target on our back but that’s football and we’re used to it.”
Isman said the game plan was to run Gold Coast ragged and make them feel the pinch in foreign conditions.
“It’s about what you do with the ball on the day and if we keep it the way we have been at training, Gold Coast will hopefully struggle,” he said.
“If we can keep the ball and make them do the running it will help us out in the end.”