Central Coast Mariners defender Joshua Rose will return to New Zealand for the first time this weekend, since his time with the now defunct New Zealand Knights in the maiden Hyundai A-League season back in 2005/06.
Central Coast Mariners defender Joshua Rose will return to New Zealand for the first time this weekend, since his time with the now defunct New Zealand Knights in the maiden Hyundai A-League season back in 2005/06.
This time, it will be in the Yellow and Navy of the Mariners, and fresh from an impressive Central Coast debut, Rose is keen to exorcise some demons of his time in Auckland, as he faces off against Wellington Phoenix at Westpac Stadium.
“It will be the first time and I-m looking forward to going back and playing. I was a bit disappointed about the way I played in the season I was over there so I-m looking forward to getting back over there and showing them how much I-ve improved,” said Rose.
Rose was absent from the Mariners opening night triumph over Melbourne Heart due to a registration issue, but it allowed him to make his Mariners debut, in front of the Bluetongue Stadium faithful.
“It-s a great relief, it was great to get out there to feel the atmosphere of the crowd and get that matchday feeling back.
“Hopefully we start the Wellington game the way we finished the Adelaide game, a draw was probably a fair result, the way we played in the first half was a bit disappointing, we needed a bit more urgency, but the way we finished was promising,” Rose said.
The 28-year-old-s combination with Oliver Bozanic down the left flank earned plenty of praise in the 1-all draw with Adelaide United, and Rose is confident they will only create more of an impact as time goes by.
“For the first game it worked well I think, hopefully we can only improve with each game, but Ollie is a very hard worker, and it makes my job a lot easier when he is tracking back, so hopefully I can help him going forward as well.
“He tracks back a lot and helps me in defence which makes it a lot easier, and then I-ve got Patrick (Zwaanswijk) next to me on the other side, he wins everything in the air, and we already have a good combination from a few trial games and the first game. He goes up to win the headers and I just cover him, and Wilko-s the same, he-s pretty solid in the air. Hopefully we can not concede, especially from set pieces, which I-m sure we will have a look at this week and work out where we went wrong, but it-s good to have kept two clean sheets from open play in the first two games.”
While Sunday-s clash with Adelaide was at times a gruelling battle, this week-s meeting with Wellington could be another challenge for differing reasons.
Heavy rain frustrated both the Phoenix and their previous opponent Gold Coast United on Friday night, and those conditions are forecast to stick around.
“It got a bit physical at some stages but you have to cop that in a few games I suppose, it-s fair enough, but hopefully we can trouble (Wellington-s) defences.
“You have to play in that weather some times, especially when you go over to New Zealand, and playing in Romania you get a lot of weather like that so I actually don-t mid playing in the rain, but we-ll just see how it is when we get there,” Rose said.
