Hiroki Sakai of Auckland FC heads the ball. Photo: AAP / Photosport
Auckland FC are one game away from an A-League Grand Final but they say there is still hard work to be done.
Part one of coach Steve Corica's grand plan was executed at a wet AAMI Park with a 1-0 win in the first leg of the semi-final against Melbourne Victory.
Ahead of the match Corica said he wanted his side to keep their 13th clean sheet of the season.
By successfully doing that Auckland clearly know what needs to happen next during the return leg in Penrose on Saturday.
Aggregate goals over the two legs of the semi-final will determine which side moves on to the Grand Final on 31 May.
"We definitely know that the job's not done - there's still a lot of hard work to go," Corica said.
He wanted "more of the same" from his side when they returned to Auckland.
"We get another goal at home it makes it more difficult for them as well if we can score early but if we have to keep another clean sheet that would be wonderful as well.
"[We] are 90 minutes away, or 97 minutes away sometimes, of getting into a Grand Final which no New Zealand team has ever done.
"So we've created a lot of history throughout the year and basically this is another piece that we want to add to it."
Auckland's leading goal-scorer this season, Logan Rogerson, headed home the only goal of the first leg and he is aware of how slight Auckland's advantage is.
"A 1-0 lead isn't a big lead and I think they're going to come at us as well, they need to score, so I think its going to be a very high intensity match."
Vice-captain Tommy Smith said the team was confident ahead of the second leg and wanted to keep the "trend" of clean sheets going but they would not be getting too far ahead of themselves.
"Finals football is always tough. They're certainly not down and out. They'll have everything to play for and nothing to lose so we know that they'll come out firing again and it's about us standing up to that and taking it to them again in front of our home crowd.
"We won't go in with the mentality that we're 1-nil up. I think that's a dangerous one to do so we'll go again like we have every game this season and take it on it's merit and do the best we can and put in a good performance and see where that takes us."
Auckland have had success away from home this season but have only lost once at their "fortress" of Mt Smart Stadium.
The crowd number will increase for the home leg with additional seating added to the stadium to meet demand, something that midfielder Louis Verstraete is looking forward to.
"If we could play every single game there (Mt Smart), we would sign immediately off, because we have the best fan base in the league."
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