Goalkeeper Luke Martino says Inglewood United need to move on quickly from last week’s disappointments if they’re to remain in top four contention. Inglewood’s final hopes were recently dealt a double blow with last month’s win at Stirling Lions over-turned due to a breach of player eligibility rules, a decision which was compounded a few days later by a 4-2 loss at Sorrento. As a consequence, the club have slipped to seventh in the National Premier Leagues and now face an uphill battle to close the nine-point gap between themselves and the top four.
Martino has taken both setbacks in his stride, the 25-year old maintaining Inglewood still have the quality on board to push their way back up the standings. “The weekend loss at Sorrento leaves us a fair way off the pace, especially given we also lost points for the Stirling game, but we still have enough games left to turn it around,” he asserted. “We have shown we can match it with any team when we play our best. As long as we turn up with the right attitude for the remaining games we will give ourselves every opportunity of playing in the finals.”
A key element in Inglewood’s season to date has been a solid defensive unit that conceded just seven goals in as many NPL games. However, that has changed dramatically of late with the team shipping four goals to each Floreat Athena and Sorrento in the space of seven days. “The defence started to gel really well and we were conceding very few goals,” commented Martino. “In the last fortnight that has changed and we’ve conceded more goals than we would like. We need to sort that out as soon as possible and rediscover the cohesion that we had earlier in the season.”
Inglewood’s backline is certain to be put under the spotlight this weekend when top-of-the-table Bayswater City visits Intiga Stadium. The clubs have played out two absolute thrillers already this year, Bayswater stealing a last minute 3-2 league win back in March and also claiming last month’s pulsating Cup encounter via a penalty shoot-out. “We matched them in both games and for large portions played the better football,” commented Martino. “Bayswater have a quality team and at the end of the day their experience helped get them across the line on both occasions.”
Martino cannot think of a better way to re-assert Inglewood’s top four credentials than by defeating the reigning State champions on Saturday. “If we want to give ourselves any chance of competing in the finals we need to maximise the number of points we get out of every remaining game,” he said. “Whether it’s against Bayswater or Subiaco, nothing changes, we need to win. If we play with the right attitude and intensity from the opening whistle to the last whistle, and don’t have a repeat of the lapses we had in our last two games, we will get the result we are after.”
