United still in with a chance
NORTH Queensland United remain bullish about their hopes of avoiding the National Premier League drop after they ran out of legs in a 4- 0 road loss to Lions FC on Saturday night.
Coach Michael Brooks has urged his squad to stay focused on this weekend’s away clash with Brisbane Roar before a potential do- or- die home showdown with Redlands the following week.
With the bottom two to be relegated, NQU are two points behind third- last Redlands with a game in hand.
“The match- up against Redlands is a really big game where we need the result, but we need to focus on this ( Roar) game first,” Brooks said.
“The Redlands game in itself is massive. Even if we don’t get a result this week, we can still jump them by winning that.”
After Lions FC thrashed them 6- 0 in Townsville earlier this season, NQU’s scrambling defence kept them scoreless at halftime. But four goals in 16 minutes midway through the second half allowed Lions FC to retain the competition lead.
“We put in a good shift in the first half, but we used up a lot of juice keeping them at bay. In the second half, we ran out of legs,” Brooks said.
“The way we were playing against them requires a high work rate and a lot of running.
“Midway through the second half they just wore us down and started to take their chances.”
Brooks said he will monitor how young trio Kyren Walters, Masimango Benjamin and Harry Linning recover from this week’s national schools titles campaign with Queensland before deciding whether they back up against the Roar.
“They’ll be available for selection, but they wouldn’t have trained with us and they would have played a whole week of football,” Brooks said.
NATIONAL PREMIER LEAGUE
Lions FC 4 ( D Kim 60’, S Carlos 68’, M Hore 70’, M Madle 76’) bt NQU 0 at Lions Stadium on Saturday night.