Brisbane Roar’s Mitch Nichols may have been born and bred on the Gold Coast but there will be no doubts about where his allegiances lie when he takes the field in this Sunday’s Boxing Day derby.
Anticipating a tough hit out against third-placed United, the Robina local said nothing would be sweeter than securing three points over his hometown club.
In the four outings between the two sides, Brisbane are yet to beat their southern rivals with last Boxing Day-s 5-1 loss at Skilled Park the club-s biggest ever defeat in the Hyundai A-League.
While Nichols played no part in that game, his eagerness to make amends for the result was obvious.
“To be fair, we haven-t really thought or talked about the result last year but we need to beat them,” he said.
“It-s a derby and we can-t give them the bragging rights again.”
In a season full of firsts for the Roar, including maiden wins in Sydney and Townsville, the 21-year-old was positive a victory over the Coast side was next to follow.
“We want to give the crowd a good Christmas present because last year we didn-t really produce the goods,” Nichols said.
“We don-t want our supporters going home unhappy and we don-t want the Gold Coast supporters going home happy.
“It will be good if we could finally beat them and with the way we-ve been playing, we-re confident we can get it done.
“We-ve got so many new faces in the squad this year that past results don-t mean much to us, we-re now focusing on this year.”
With away trips to second placed Adelaide United and fourth placed Central Coast Mariners on the horizon after Sunday-s blockbuster, Nichols said a win over Miron Bleiberg-s side would give the team much-needed momentum heading into the New Year.
“We-ve got a few tough games coming up against the teams that are around us,” he said.
“We don-t want them taking points off us and catching up to us so it-s a big two or three weeks for us and we-ll be looking to come out of it with maximum points.”
Tickets for Brisbane Roar vs Gold Coast United are available through Ticketek. Kick-off for the match is 6pm at Suncorp Stadium.
