“I'll be honest, I think we lack an out and out poacher in the box. It's certainly not Brosquey's [Alex Brosque] game, but we don't have one in the squad," said Kosmina.

“Brendon [Santalab] has potential to be like that but we have players who come from behind. Sniffers are hard to find. That's why they get paid more than defenders!”

Striker Bridge did not play on Sunday against Victory with Kosmina saying he needed to use other players in order to get them “up to speed”.

Kosmina was frustrated that his side did not take their opportunities against Victory in their 2-2 draw on Sunday.

“We did enough to win the game but we didn't take enough of our chances," he said. "We pushed them.

“We've proved over the last few weeks we know how to fight our way out of a corner. And tonight if nothing else, will steel our resolve.”

Kossie defended Mark Milligan who once again produced a howler in front of national coach Pim Verbeek.

But he added: “It was a shot that was shanked to be honest. It was probably going wide until Millsy got onto it."

Kosmina had his customary dig at the opposition, in this case Victory's five-man attacking quintet of Hernandez, Allsopp, Thompson, Caceres and Ward.

“When you've got nothing to play for and all you want to do is stop us winning the premiership then you can afford to take a risk,” Kosmina said. “They're on holidays now.”

FC skipper Tony Popovic added that his side had nothing to fear going into the club's third finals series on the spin.

“We're as good as anyone in the finals," he said. "We've got no-one to fear in a sense. If we put it together, we're as good as anyone.”

Popovic described the state of the sandy SFS surface as “rubbish... very poor” but added the atmosphere in front of the 33,000 plus crowd was “brilliant”.

Victory skipper Kevin Muscat also said the pitch “resembled a sandpit”.