Phoenix not letting cup upset halt charge towards new A-League season

August 12, 2019

Forward Callum McCowatt says that the side have moved on from their defeat to the Brisbane Strikers.

Having been dumped out of the FFA Cup by Australian side Brisbane Strikers last week, the Wellington Phoenix are continuing to work towards the start of the new A-League season.

Falling 2-0 behind in their first-round clash away in Brisbane, Ufuk Talay's side clawed their way back with goals to Cameron Devlin and Callum McCowatt.

However, a missed penalty from David Ball saw the Phoenix fail to win the match in extra time, before losing the resulting shootout 4-2, Ball and McCowatt missing their spot kicks.

With the Phoenix now without any official matches until October 13, beginning their A-League season against Western United, McCowatt says that the side can focus on preparing for what the new campaign will bring.

"We've just got to focus on the next games that we've got coming up, and build into the season," McCowatt told media.

"Just forget about it as soon as possible. Maybe look at the positives and look at the negatives also, and just see what we can improve [on], and take it into the rest of the pre-season.

Meanwhile with the FFA Cup defeat being new manager Ufuk Talay's first competitive match in charge of the Phoenix, McCowatt is hoping that the side will have gelled by the time their next fixtures arrived.

"Hopefully by the time the season comes, we'll be a bit more ready.

"The cup game, we only had a couple of games to get ready for it. It made it tough, especially playing 120 minutes.

"We'll just use the rest of pre-season to get that extra sharpness, extra fitness for the A-League season."

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