Soccer-Italiano relishing Mariners clash as Phoenix hit pre-season target

The 1-0 home win over Brisbane Roar left Italiano "ecstatic" as Wellington moved onto 46 points from 23 games, six more than a Mariners side who have played one game fewer and who lost to Sydney FC on Saturday. "That was our target for the year, was to get 46 points," said Italiano, whose team travel to Gosford to face Mariners on Saturday.

Wellington Phoenix coach Giancarlo Italiano saw his team hit their pre-season target to open up a six-point gap over nearest rivals Central Coast Mariners on Sunday, less than a week before the A-League's top two meet in a season-defining clash. The 1-0 home win over Brisbane Roar left Italiano "ecstatic" as Wellington moved onto 46 points from 23 games, six more than a Mariners side who have played one game fewer and who lost to Sydney FC on Saturday.

"That was our target for the year, was to get 46 points," said Italiano, whose team travel to Gosford to face Mariners on Saturday. "I'm happy. So now every other point that we get is a bonus. "All the games from now to the end of the year ... have a bit of a bite to it. I feel where it's that time of the year where everything is worth something."

Sunday's victory pushed Wellington closer to their first-ever A-League Premiership, the title awarded to the team that finishes top of the standings at the end of the 27-game regular season. The top six clubs then advance to the finals series, where teams playoff for spots in the Grand Final to ultimately determine the A-League Championship winners.

Wellington have not finished higher than the third place achieved in the 2019-20 season and have never featured in the A-League Grand Final but go into their last four games of the regular campaign as favourites. However, they will travel to face Central Coast without captain Alex Rufer, who was sent off nine minutes from the end of a win over Brisbane that was achieved as a result of Bozhidar Kraev's second minute goal.

"It's massive," Italiano said of the meeting between the leading duo. "I don't want to overblow it and say that we're going into that game and if we win that game the season's done. It's not like that. "For us we're going to take it game by game and we're going to get the best result we can, the best performance for the next game.

"It's against second spot, they're a really good team, we respect them highly. When we played them here it was a very cagey match and tactically I thought both teams were very close. "We go into that game with the intention to do the best we can, and then we still have another three games after that."

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