North Force owe Matamata Swifts a good performance.
That was the North Force team sentiment at training this week as they prepare to play Matamata in round four of the Northern Federation League soccer grading competition tomorrow.
The Northland side drew 2-2 with Matamata in an away game earlier this season, during
the initial Northern Federation Division 1 League.
It was a game skipper Scott Burgess felt North Force should have won and the team has a point to prove tomorrow at Kamo Sports Park.
"For me personally, it was one of our worst games of the year. We talked about it at training on Tuesday night and we agreed we owe them a good performance. It's a game we know we can win and, if we don't get the three points, we will be pretty disappointed," Burgess said.
A full-strength side will line up for the match, although a question mark remains over Mark Ruddell's fitness after he strained his hamstring in last week's 1-1 draw with Papatoetoe.
While North Force were happy to take the one point from last week's draw, there were areas of their game where they were looking to improve.
"We probably should have come out of that game with more than one goal ... so converting our chances at goal would be the obvious one to improve on, but we want to look at the balance of the whole game. Defensively we can play a bit better, we let it slip on the weekend," the skipper said.
The purpose of this grading round is to see what division North Force will play in next season. After two rounds, North Force lie sixth from eight teams but still have four rounds including tomorrow's match, plus with a game in hand.
They need to finish at the top to earn promotion into the premier league next year and Burgess says the team are feeling positive they can achieve the goal.
"We are still fairly confident we will be promoted. There are games we are targeting where we want to get three points from - such as this weekend's game - and especially our home games. We have two in a row at home now, which is good plus if we can get a few points on the road, we should do okay," he said.
Kick-off between North Force and Matamata is at 2.45pm tomorrow at Kamo Sports Park. There is no North Force Reserves game as Matamata do not have a Reserves team.
