Pain and Galloway now wear the yellow strip for Central Coast Mariners and will lock horns with their former club tonight at the old stamping ground.

The blonde duo consider themselves close friends with Pain stating he was “over the moon” when he heard whispers of Galloway’s signing.

The pair left the Victory for the same reasons – the need for game time.

Now both players have the opportunity conceding the transfers took longer, but maintain there are no hard feelings towards the Blue and White.

“As Victory would say… and they have every right to say ‘we’re the biggest club in the country’ seeing all what they’ve done and the trophies they’ve got,” Pain told FourFourTwo.

“It’s all well and good sitting there watching but it got to the point where I needed to be playing football and that meant I needed to step away from Victory and I think it’s the best move I’ve made.

“I couldn’t have foreseen the way it eventually fell into place, but with the management coming in, it’s worked in my favour.

“I think it’s been really good having Paulo (Mariners coach Paul Okon) around. It was definitely something I calculated and needed to happen.”

Galloway has featured in all games this season apart from the 1-1 draw to Newcastle Jets in early November.

“My game was at a point where I needed to get minutes, I didn’t see it happening there (at Victory),” Galloway told FourFourTwo.

“I needed to move elsewhere to get those minutes… for whatever reason they fell through… I tried for a while but it never came off but luckily enough in the last window, the club did the right thing in letting me leave.

“It was the best for both, it opened up for them and allowed me to move.”

Pain was settled in Gosford and was living with Storm Roux and Liam Rose.

He however paid tribute to the youth academy at Victory and was also ecstatic for former teammates Andrew Nabbout (Jets), Jesse Makarounas (Adelaide United) and Joey Katebian (Brisbane Roar).

“Joey’s a fantastic guy and I think it’s credit to what the youth team is doing at Victory, if there’s no room for these players to step up at Victory, there are other clubs out there stepping in,” Pain said.

“Andrew and Jesse moved on and they’re having good seasons themselves, credit to these people taking risks to move interstate and trying to forge a career elsewhere.

“I’ve been a big advocate for young players playing, it didn’t happen at Melbourne Victory and now I have the chance a bit more, I’m actually one of the older players.

“I’m really pleased to see guys like Adam Berry and Liam Rose play because they’re fantastic players, they’re only going to get better through experiences like this.”

Both Pain and Galloway had experience playing under Okon in the Young Socceroos with both full of praise for the Mariners new boss.

Galloway now lives alone in Gosford and felt the area was similar to his home city Perth.

The full-back was looking forward to the “banter” with his old Victory teammates and felt the upcoming game would be more exciting than strange.

He also was not interested for the dismissive mentality towards the Mariners.

“Everyone has their own opinion of certain clubs, I know what it’s like being here. It’s good to be in a place where everything is different,” Galloway said.

“At Melbourne, you are the biggest club and have the best facilities then you come here and it’s different, but it’s not really a challenge, it’s just something new you’ve got to learn to adapt to, it’ll be the same no matter where you move in the world, not every place will be the same as the last.

“Young players whether the opportunities were there or not, Melbourne are always going to have very high quality players and people will miss out for many reasons.

“Players knew within themselves they had to move elsewhere to get games like what I’ve done now, nothing beats playing football week in and week out and all these players are doing now and they’re just going to keep improving with it.

“It’ll be a good game, tough for us, you never know underdogs can come out on top, I guess it depends which teams rock up on the day sometimes like how the flow of the game goes.”