Auckland FC Dan Hall and Brisbane Roar Thomas Waddingham battle it out during the A-League football match between Auckland FC v Brisbane Roar held at Go Media Stadium. Photo: Brett Phibbs / www.photosport.nz
Brisbane Roar v Auckland FC
Kick-off: 7pm Sunday 30 March
Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane
Live blog coverage on RNZ Sport
Six months ago Auckland FC and Brisbane Roar clashed in their opening game of the A-League season, it did not take long for the two clubs to go in completely opposite directions.
The league-leading Auckland side had 12 wins, six draws and two losses so far this season. Brisbane had two wins, five draws and 12 losses to be second to last in the 13 team competition.
Coming off the FIFA break the two sides would play in Queensland on Sunday in match that Auckland coach Steve Corica said was crucial in their plan to extend the lead at the top of the standings.
"Really important in the scheme of the season for us after the international window to come back and start winning again. We're on a great run, nine games unbeaten but probably the last three have been a little bit disappointing for me and we need to improve on that," Corica said.
"It's going to be a tough lead-in to the end of the season obviously everyone is playing for something. Brisbane don't want to be on the bottom of the table at the end of the season they're on a decent roll themselves three games unbeaten, two draws and the last game they played they won, so they will be full of confidence playing at their home ground and we need to respond."
Auckland had not won in their last three games and had conceded eight goals across their last four matches. A statistic that Corica said he was "not really pleased with".
"I'm not putting it down to any one person, for us defence starts at the front and it filters back... I'm looking for formulas that are going to win but also keep clean sheets."
A win in Brisbane, where it was forecast for a lot of rain and humidity, would help Auckland to put a seven-point gap between the club and second placed Western United who had a bye this weekend.
"Obviously we want to try and do that and try and build from a great start to the season we want to finish strong and prepare ourselves for the finals."
A week off from competition had allowed the Auckland coaching staff to take stock of what had been working and what had not.
"When you have opportunities like the international window and where we were as a club and what we want to achieve it is important that you do look at stuff like that and my main focus was we're conceding too many goals, so to stop that we had to do something about it and we've been working on that."
Corica was pleased his team had won their opening game of the season against the Roar and had kicked on from there but recognised Auckland could have had the same trajectory as the Roar had they not got a few things right at the start.
"Different paths we had throughout the season but we do not take them lightly and there is no way we take any team lightly in the A-League because we've seen what can happen [against Perth Glory] and we have to perform and make sure that our standards don't drop and this is a really crucial game for us and I expect the players to be right up for it and ready to win.
"We put a really good squad together at the start, it has taken us time but I think we have got better as the season has gone on and stronger and the players have got to know each other a lot better as well with the cohesion so we'll still get better and performing and get the job done hopefully."
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