By Tara Murray
Hoppers Crossing is hoping for a bit more continuity on the field in the FV state league 3 north-west season.
The Reds have played well in patches having dropped back into state league 3, but haven’t had the results they were after.
Coach Reardo Luka admits it has been an up and down season.
“We’ve had a few injuries and we’ve had some results not go our way,” he said. “The first four rounds were good, but the middle four rounds weren’t kind to us.
“Partially down to a few injuries and sometimes a lot of luck. We’ve had a lot of away games as well.
“Six out of our first eight games were away. We’re trying to build some positives and we know we have a lot of home games and hopefully we can build a fortress at home and that started on the weekend.”
Luka said they didn’t need to turn a corner or make any changes to their squad, but they needed a bit of luck.
“The top sides have been able to have a bit more continuity in their first 11, top 16 and we have not had that in the last five weeks.
“There’s players who are now coming back and we’ve had a couple of new signings.”
Luka said at this level you will never have your top side due to outside life influences, but they had mapped out a plan to cover any absences.
He said they felt they had the depth to cover those absences.
Luka said for them they were just focused on taking it a week at a time.
“We see it week in, week out that every game is worth three points no matter who you play the value is the same,” he said.
“You have to respect that opportunity on the day.”
The Reds have a couple of big weeks with matches against Brunswick Zebras and Epping City which are on the same amount of points.
Luka said they were ‘six point’ games.
“It makes a big difference,” he said before the weekend’s match. “We have two home games and the desire is to get max points.
“We’ll then reassess at the half way mark and see where we can improve.”
The Reds had to share the points in the first of those matches on Friday night against the Zebras.
The Reds led 1-0 at half time before scoring a goal early in the second half to lead 2-0.
Maximilian Gust then scored three goals for the Zebras to put them in front, before Connor Bencich levelled the scores at 3-3.
The Reds sit eighth on the ladder.
