Fired up United raring to go again
NORTH Queensland United are fired up for their FFA Cup bout against NQ rivals Cairns FC tonight after proving they can just about match up to one of Brisbane’s finest teams.
United skipper Corey Waples said his side emerged relatively unscathed apart from the loss of defender Nicholas Figg to a head injury in Saturday’s 2- 1 loss against top flight National Premier League team Olympic FC.
In the heated game, NQU prevented Olympic FC from scoring in the second half after going down two goals.
Waples said inconsistency on the pitch needed to be reined in.
“That’s been our downfall, that inconsistency,” he said.
“For 10 minutes we might be really poor but for the next 10 minutes we can be really good. But in those 10 minutes of playing bad, we can concede two goals.
“For us to go forward we just need to work hard in training.”
Waples said United fired after an on- field scrap against Olympic FC and expected another physical contest against Cairns based on previous experience.
“It’s always a rivalry. It’s always competitive,” he said.
Waples said United would likely field players who had not yet had much game time to give others a chance to recover ahead of Sunday’s NPL game against Sunshine Coast FC – NQU’s third game in a week.
United coach Michael Brooks said Cairns FC would be up against it tonight at Brolga Park.
“They’re coming up midweek, on a working week, so we’ve got a few things working in our favour,” he said.
“We’ve still got to turn up and get the result so a good performance there you know we can hopefully go into the weekend and get up against Sunny Coast.”
Kick- off is at 6.30pm. The winner progresses to the final preliminary round to be played next Saturday.