Fortress macedonia remains a happy hunting ground for glory

After running the gauntlet of a hectic schedule, Perth Glory coach Ruben Zadkovich says he’s proud of his team’s resilience as they extended their unbeaten record at Macedonia Park. Back at

their makeshift home stadium for the third time in eight days, the Glory overcame a poor first half performance - and a power blackout - to escape with a 2-2 draw against Sydney FC. Having

finished their home stand with three wins, two draws and no losses - with three of those matches coming in the past eight days - Zadkovich paid tribute to his troops for embracing the

challenge of making the Balcatta venue a hard place to travel to. “We want to make this place a fortress. We want to be very difficult for teams when they do come here,” he said. “I wouldn’t

say I’m happy with (Saturday night) because I want us to win and I expect us to try and win at home and we need to play better than we did for longer periods. “But on the other hand, the

character and the resilience in the group is huge and seven points out of those nine is is a decent effort.” After the opening 45 minutes against Sydney, it looked like the three home games

and a trip to Adelaide over the last fortnight had caught up with the Glory as Joe Lolley and Rhyan Grant struck for Sydney. Perth rallied in the second half, with half-time substitutes Zach

Duncan and David Williams scoring within two minutes of the restart and full time respectively. “I’m happy for both of them. It’s a real testament to the group. It’s a collective, we speak

about that often, that it’s going to take everybody, especially in that type of scheduling and fixture list,” Zadkovich said. “For them to come on and make an impact like that is exactly

what the team needed, so you could say they just did their job and on the other hand. I’m really happy for those two especially.” Zadkovich admitted he saw warning signs in the warm-up prior

to Saturday’s sluggish first half. “The first half was quite poor, we were really leggy in the warm up, we couldn’t really get going and one of my assistants, Chris Coyne, flagged that with

me, that we really needed to try and give them a bit of a rev-up,” he said. “Physically, I think the short turnarounds in those games leading into it probably took its toll a little bit,

and we kind of knew that would happen.” The Glory’s quest to get back into the game hit a roadblock when the power cut out at Macedonia Park, but Zadkovich said he was unfazed by the

disruption. “This is A-League football. That was the first thing I thought of,” he said. “I think I’ve seen everything. I’ve been in the league since the first season, I’ve seen everything,

both good and bad and I think that was on show,” he said. “You saw a Sydney FC team with some real quality in their attack and then you saw a really spirited Perth team that stuck to a

process and played some really good football in the second half under fatigue - you saw the good, the bad and the ugly.” GET THE LATEST NEWS FROM THEWEST.COM.AU IN YOUR INBOX. Sign up for

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