Brisbane Roar’s reliable defender Matt Smith has praised his side’s speedy start to Sunday’s away clash at the Central Coast which he believes played a key role in securing the win and setting a new Hyundai A-League record for unbeaten games.
After an uncharacteristically slow start midweek against Perth Glory, Brisbane shot out of the blocks at Bluetongue Stadium to stretch their unbeaten run to 14 games – a new Hyundai A-League record.
Costa Rican import Jean Carlos Solorzano bagged a brace in the opening ten minutes with attacking midfielder Mitch Nichols adding another before half an hour was played.
“When we score goals in such quick succession like that early in the game, it certainly makes the defence a bit more relaxed,” Smith said.
“There-s always a case where sometimes you can concede but I thought we had done fantastically well in making sure we took our chances nice and early on which I think killed their momentum.”
Substitute Reinaldo-s fourth strike of the season and a late own goal from Mariners skipper Alex Wilkinson rounded out the scoring, although Brisbane were unlucky to concede an early second half goal to leave the final score 5-1.
While admittedly proud of his team-s accomplishment, Smith emphasised the squad-s short-term outlook on the campaign which means only the upcoming game played on their minds.
“Going into the game we didn-t really put too much emphasis on it, we just concentrated on getting the three points first and foremost,” Smith said.
“It wasn-t until a couple of days prior to the game that we were actually up for the record.
“Afterwards, it was good to see we got the three points but to also set a new Hyundai A-League record is great for the club and for everybody involved.”
The Roar-s one and only defeat this campaign came at the hands of Melbourne Victory almost three months ago and this weekend Brisbane travel south to the Victorian capital to attempt to rectify the only down point in what has otherwise been an impressive season for Ange Postecoglou-s men.
While Brisbane defeated the Victory in the reverse fixture at Suncorp Stadium just a few weeks later, the central defender said the three points would be sweeter if they could make amends for the result at AAMI Park.
“Week in, week out, we-re always faced with big games,” Smith said.
“We-ve only got 11 games left so the teams that are behind us certainly have got the capabilities to catch us and some may be able to overtake us.
“We-re just taking each game as it comes and the Victory were the last team to beat us but we-re not playing on that.
“We-re just making sure that we-re playing the game to the best of our ability to hopefully get some points down there.”
Brisbane Roar-s next home game is the December 26 derby clash with Gold Coast United.
Kick-off for that match is 6pm and tickets are available through Ticketek (click here).
