Wellington United will be without three of their regular defenders for their Chatham Cup football match with Wairarapa United at Newtown Park in Wellington on Saturday.
But that isn't stopping player-coach Graham Little from predicting they will give their higher-graded opposition a good run for their money.
"Obviously it would be nice
to have everybody on deck but having players out is nothing new, you just have to deal with it," Little said yesterday. "What effect it has is up to us, we have to cope the best we can."
What worries Little more than the composition of his starting line-up is the way Wellington United played in their premier division loss to fellow table toppers Upper Hutt last weekend.
Upper Hutt won 4-2, aided by what Little labelled as "easily the worst" Wellington United performance of the 2011 season.
"We were terrible, absolutely terrible," Little said. "I'd hate to think we'd play like that again."
What Little would like is for Wellington United to give Wairarapa United a taste of what they showed when they hammered 2009 Chatham Cup champions Olympic 5-0 a few weeks back.
Olympic are, along with Wairarapa United, one of the top-rated central league sides but they were outgunned by a Wellington squad firing on all cylinders.
"We took our chances that day, it was a really good effort," Little recalled.
"That's what we want this weekend, anything less probably won't be enough."
Little expects there to be little difference in the tactics applied by the two teams. From what he has seen or heard of Wairarapa United, he sees them as a side who prefer to play a free-flowing type of football and says Wellington United are the same way inclined.
"We like to push forward as much as we can, we've got some talented players up front and we need to make use of them," he said. "And when it all comes down to what happens in 90 minutes of football you have to be positive, you have to give yourself a chance and there's no better way of doing that than scoring goals, is there?"
