Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Phoenix confident of turning around poor Sydney record

Updated at 1:57 pm on 13 March 2010

The Wellington Phoenix play Sydney for a place in the A-League football semi-final tonight and the team's confident of turning around their poor record against the minor premiers.

The Phoenix have lost all three games and scored just one goal against Sydney this season, and haven't travelled well with just three wins from 13 away games.

But the Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert says while the odds are agianst them, they're feeling good about changing their record tonight.

He says after losing three times to Sydney and scoring only one goal against them the Phoenix think it's their turn.

The Wellington Phoenix keeper, Liam Reddy, says they have nothing to lose tonight as Sydney carry the favourites tag so all the pressure is on them.

Reddy will join Sydney FC on a three year contract next season.

Sydney will again be without Socceroos defender Shannon Cole for tomorrow night's home A-League football play-off against the Wellington Phoenix.

Cole is still suffering from a hamstring injury he picked up while playing in Australia's 1-nil win over Indonesia in Brisbane last week.

For the Phoenix, central defender Jon McKain is the only change from the 16-man squad which beat Newcastle 3-1, coming back in from suspension at the expense of Costa Barbarouses.

McKain says the players have found it hard to recover from the sheer amount of football of the last three weeks.

But he says as professional footballers they are paid to perform and come kick off-tonight, there will be no excuses.

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