Western United Ready for Launceston Adventure Against Leaders

On the eve of Western United’s clash with  league leaders Central Coast Mariners in Launceston, Tasmanian Times spoke with head coach Mark Rudan. The western Victorian club is just beginning what they hope will be a long relationship with Tasmania.

Journalist

I suppose we’re very grateful to have you down here in Tassie. From the coach’s perspective, you expecting home ground advantage, from the crowd point of view? Are these things together?

Mark Rudan

Absolutely. That’s the plan. We’ve know about coming down to Tassie, in particular Launceston for a while. We’ve been building, you know, promoting the game and getting the word out there. So we have expectations just to get the locals out there, wearing green and black and getting right behind Western United.

Journalist

From a player’s perspective, and from a travel perspective, is there any risk from your point of view in having home games at a neutral venue.

Mark Rudan

You want to be playing home away from home, and that’s part of it, obviously, the bigger picture, as building continues on our stadium. And that will take time, but at the same time, we’ve got our football club, our fan base, and making sure people, not just in greater Western Victoria, but also just like here in Tasmania, there’s a possibility and chance to go out and promote our club why not? That’s the opportunity that we’ll get, we’ll embrace that challenge as well. So it was only an hour flight, shorter to Launnie than it is to Sydney. So it was fantastic from that point of view. The boys had a look at the pitch, had a run on it and loved it. So credit goes to the groundskeeper that looked after this pitch as well.

Journalist

I suppose from a season perspective you’ve got 10 games in hand, you got two games in hand, and there’s only a ten point difference between yourselves and the top spot. A win on the weekend and it’ll become seven, even though you’re sitting in sixth.

Mark Rudan

You reminded me a bit of Einstein there with all that mathematics … it’s about us taking it game by game. At the end of the season I think that’s when you’ll determine who finishes where. I think that’s the most important part. We’ve been hampered somewhat, with some games being called off for different reasons, which is not ideal, because you want continuity, you know, you want be playing week in week out. And like I said, there’s a backlog of games now that we’re got to play, but we’ll embrace that as well. And no excuses as far as we’re concerned. We’re playing the top team in the competition tomorrow night, we can’t wait. We’re looking forward to it. And we’ve got nothing to lose tomorrow, that’s the beauty of it.

Tasmanian Times

What’s the secret to breaking down the Mariners? Well, you don’t have to tell me all the secrets. But what’s the approach?

Mark Rudan

The approach is to have the mentality to win the game, enjoy it. Simple as that. We’ve got great footballers. We understand what the opponent’s about. But if we continue to focus on the opposition, it takes away a lot of the strengths of our team. Yeah, we’re gonna go out there, we got a sort of game plan, but it’s gonna be about us and with the mindset to go out there and win the game we’re really confident that we’re gonna go out there and get a result tomorrow and win the game. That’s how we feel right now.

Tasmanian Times

Are you at full strength tomorrow?

Mark Rudan

We’re full strength. Apart from Lachie Wales.

Journalist

Any news on his concussion?

Mark Rudan

Yeah, well, we’ll wait until tomorrow. So technically, he could well be part of the squad tomorrow on a technicality, because there’s obviously a five day process there

Journalist

That goes with the concussion protocol, correct? Yeah.

Mark Rudan

So we’ll find out, we’ll chat about that tomorrow on game day. But we will know that we’ve got that up our sleeve as well, Josh Risdon’s back, back in terms of training for a couple of weeks now. And he’s been a huge loss. It goes without saying what he produces for us, he’s a Socceroo and played in the World Cup. People tend to forget a lot about not having Josh Risdon, indisposed this year, so it’s good that he’s come down as well.

Journalist

How has Markovic settled in with the squad?

Mark Rudan

Very good. We’ve got a few young young players there. He’s got a smile on his face, he loves the environment. You know, we spend a lot of time with young kids as well. And more importantly, give them opportunities. You only have to look at Luke Duzel, the latest one who’s got a great run of games. You don’t just play them and take them out because they make a mistake. They lose confidence very quickly, the young ones if you do that. You’ve got to back them in, keep keep working with them, keep getting out and believing in them. And that is no different. You know, he’s come in, he’s got to wait for his chance now. Connor Pain is one of the form left backs in the competition, right? So but he knows that and he wants to learn, he wants to learn from the best and be in a good environment. So he’s been a good kid.

Journalist

Do you think your position on the ladder is a fair reflection of where you are as a team?

Mark Rudan

Like I said it’s got nothing to do with it at the end of the day. Yeah, we’ll determine what we believe is success, at the end of the season, we know it’s been a tough year for us. It goes without saying it’s always harder the second year knowing that, you know, we haven’t got a home venue. We’ve got a lot of games coming up now, 10 games in somewhat like 27 days or 30 days, which is incredible, you know. But it is what it is and not through any of our fault, it’s external factors that’ve done that. We’ll sit down and review at the end of the year, we’ll just take it game by game. I don’t look at the ladder, I don’t look at anything else. We’ve got pretty high ambitions as a football club, the players, every game we’ve been in it, we’ve never lost one more than I think in the history of the club by more than two goals. It tells you just how tight it is, unlike other teams, you know, so we’re always there. It’s little things, you know, and it’s the little things that count, small details that matter as well. And if you can get those little things, right, you give yourself a chance.

Tasmanian Times

Your CEO was talking about the long term and wanting to provide some kind of the pathway into the W-league and A-league for Tasmanians is among others. So what’s your role as a coach in that kind of long term vision?

Mark Rudan

Yeah, look, we’re all together in that in that conversation, and I think it’s important that you know, if we can get talented kids from western Victoria it’s always a bonus. But you’ve got to open the net. You know, you have a look at Nathaniel Atkinson. As a Tassie boy, he’s done well. We’ve brought someone like David Clarkson who’s, you know, back in the day Dominic Longo was was a superstar and he did extremely well. He’s in my era. Are you guys probably too young to remember? So, you know, there’s always been quality players coming out of Tasmania, and you know, you can’t forget about that. Look, AFL’s got a foothold here in this in this state, that goes without saying. But, you know, as a coach personally, that’s when I was at Sydney United we played against South Hobart in the final, right, they made it all the way to the final, they beat Campbelltown, which was the champion South Australian team. And you know, we beat them, but my ears pricked up certainly knowing that, you know, a team from Tasmania made the NPL final, the inaugural MPL if you remember the time. So there’s certainly quality here, and you can’t dismiss that. It’s an opportunity. And, you know, I’ve been banging on about opportunity for a long time, and I can go into a lot a lot more about we need more teams in the competition, and which allows more opportunities for players in particular, and coaches. With the young kids, we were losing all the young kids because of lack of opportunity. You know, there’s a ton of great players in this state, that probably don’t get the opportunity or aren’t seen. And that’s something that we’ve got to change if we can.

Journalist

Do you think you being based in Tasmania should be the start of what the growth should be for Tasmania?

Mark Rudan

I know that Victory have been down here as well before years ago, and if you’re going to start something, do it properly. Don’t walk away from it. If the two parties can come to an agreement, I think that’s important. We’ve shown that we want to come down here and grow the game and grow our club as well. And now it comes down to and I’m not privy to that I’m not a man in a suit, right. So I don’t got to talk to the government officials as such, it’s not my job. But if we’ve got the opportunity to bring talented football players into our football club, I’m always going to be open arms for that.

Andrew Durante signing autographs for the youngsters.