Roar Stand By Winning Game Plan

BRISBANE Roar coach Ange Postecoglou is sticking to the same away game philosophy that took the side to the double last season when they face Sydney FC tomorrow night.

Brisbane opened the season with three points following a round one victory over Grand Final foes Central Coast Mariners.

Now they will be looking to notch up their first away win of the campaign against the Sky Blues at the Sydney Football Stadium.

Last year’s form saw the Roar collect 30 from a possible 45 points on the road and Postecoglou was confident the same approach would reap similar rewards this season.

“I guess that was the key to our season last year, we didn’t change our mentality going away from home,” Postecoglou said.

“Sometimes, you can go into a defensive mindset when you play away from home and our thinking last year was that we’d go into every game trying to win it.

“There’s no point settling for a draw or trying to minimise any risk at an opposition’s ground. That was our attitude last year and that’s certainly our attitude again this year”.

Brisbane have only beaten Sydney once away from home - the 1-0 win in December last year - and Roar skipper Matt Smith said the side was keen to continue its new-found form at the stadium.

“One of the good things about last year was that it didn’t matter whether we played home or away, we still had the same philosophy about the way we play football,” he said.

“I think that was one of the keys to our success last year and that will be no different this year.

“Obviously, now we’ve got the challenge of going back to back and something we are highly focused on”.

Brisbane are likely to field the same starting XI that beat the Mariners in last weekend’s entertaining encounter with quick-footed winger Henrique left out but not far off re-joining the match day squad, according to Postecoglou.

“We were pretty happy with the way things went last week and Henrique was close but he hadn’t had a full week of training,” he said.

“It’s a long season and there’s no point in unnecessarily rushing him in, we were pretty happy with everything last week so we’ll probably go in with the same team”.