Last year's semi-finalists found themselves up against against lowly Floreat Athena in the FFA Cup Round of 32 and once again required some heroics to see them through. 

 

Van't Schip put down their performance to a number of factors.

 

“It was a hard game,” van’t Schip said.

“We didn’t want to play the game that we wanted but look, it’s good that we got to the next round.

“The pitch didn’t make it easy for the game we wanted to play but still, there were a lot of things that we have to improve what we were doing well in the last two games.

“Today, we didn’t get the ball out quick enough and of course they defended well. They kept five or six players in the line behind and to get through, you need to play quick and you need to move the ball quickly from one side to another and we didn’t do that too much and not quick enough.

“When they made it 1-1, they started to believe again and lucky for us, Anthony (Caceres) had a great shot so we were happy with the win but that’s it.”

Van't Schip admitted that it wasn't ideal, and that the result would again come as a wake-up call for the squad.

“We got the lead again and still could have created a third goal but they had some dangerous moments as well,” he said.

“Credit to Athena, they made it very hard for us and we are just happy we are into the next round.

“I think it’s good (to have a game like this) because we had two games before and we played a different style in those games so there was a little bit more at stake.

“You saw we forgot a few things that we were doing the last two games very well so we just have to pick it up again after a few days off, start our second part of the pre-season and get those things better and better.”