It seemed to work as Western Sydney won their first opening game of an A-Leage campaign with a 2-1 defeat of Perth Glory at Spotless Stadium.

With interm coach Hayden Foxe taking the reins, Cornthwaite said the team was keen to focus on winning football and not the departure of Tony Popovic who led the club to  Premiership and Champions League triumph.

Speaking to Fox Sports post-match Cornthwaite revealed: "I spoke before the game to the boys about making history with the club this year.

"Obviously we haven't won a grand final, we're into the semi-final of the FFA Cup which is a bit of history, and I said we wanted to win the first game.

"So if we keep ticking off a bit of history hopefully we'll end up with a bit of silverware at the end of the season."

Wanderers were two-goals up and cruising at the break thanks to late strikes  by Oriol Riera (43') and Jumpei Kusukami (46').

But the homeside were guilty of taking their foot of the pedal and Perth bossed the second-half - a Brendan Hamill own goal (82') setting up a nervy finish.

"We could have got a couple of goals before we did eventually get one. We played some fantastic football, I thought we created a lot of chances," Cornthwaite said.

"In the second half we wanted to do pretty much the same thing, hold the possession in their half, but Perth are a good side, a competitive side and it didn't eventuate that way for us.

"They did get themselves back in the game and as you say put us under pressure at the end there...plenty to improve on but all in all a positive performance.

"I still thought we had some good passages in the front third and created some good opportunities but they probably had the better of us in the second half.

"Some good resolute defending and a bit of luck and we come away with a good three points to start the season."

Adam Taggart will probably feel the most hard done by after the Glory attacker had three good chances to score and hit the woodwork twice.

Despite the departure of Popovic for Turkey on the eve of the season, Cornthwaite said it was "pretty much business as usual".

"I think we showed tonight it hasn't affected us and we got on with the job of playing football."