Victory's Daniel Mullen and Glory's Chris Harold jostle for possession at AAMI Park. Photo: Getty Images
Suitably chastened by a stinging spray from coach Ange Postecoglou after their home loss to Perth Glory and strengthened by the return of internationals Archie Thompson, Mark Milligan and Marco Rojas, Melbourne Victory means business when it travels to Wellington for the final round of the home-and-away season on Sunday.
While the fixture marks the end of bottom side Phoenix's 2012-13 campaign, Victory has finals and a tough schedule to concentrate its mind.
Postecoglou's team won't arrive home until Monday and then has to suit up again at Etihad the following Friday night for the first final of the season against opponents who might not be known until the final kick of the regular season
For Daniel Mullen, who played against Victory in a grand final loss for Adelaide United, contemplating a first finals campaign in navy blue is a novel experience, especially as he began the A-League season in China where he had signed for Dalian Aerbin.
But a loan deal brought him to Victory midway through the season and, Postecoglou's biting tongue notwithstanding, he is enjoying the experience enough to consider making the arrangement permanent, although that is out of his control.
Mullen agrees that the squad is capable of far more than it has achieved in the past five games, where it has performed just once – a 5-0 destruction of a weakened Newcastle Jets – and taken only five points from a possible 15.
He has no complaints about Postecoglou's criticism after the side clawed its way back into the game against Perth with a late equaliser only to ship a stoppage-time winner.
"If he hadn't given us that spray, we probably would have given it to ourselves because we deserve that. It wasn't good enough, it wasn't good enough for the fans that come out and support us week in, week out," Mullen said.
"To put in a performance like that was, as the coach said, disrespectful to them and to the club, so we're going to try and rectify that this week."
Postecoglou is famously committed to his system, processes and structures, believing that it is the game plan rather than the personnel who make things tick. So when his side loses without some of its better-known players he is not particularly forgiving of their understudies, reasoning that they have been schooled in the same drills and patterns of play and should be able to step in seamlessly.
Mullen says the training sessions are as intense as any he has experienced, and there is no let up even if the team enjoys a good result.
"We're still working hard at training and in games trying to execute our plan, the way that we want to play.
"In the last few weeks, OK, some games it hasn't come off, but we're looking forward to this game [against Wellington] and we're just going to go out and do the same things.
"I'm confident, the boys are confident that we can get results and come next week when finals come, we're going to be in great condition to contest, " Mullen said.
Postecoglou knows how important momentum is. Finals are a different beast to regular season competition; the intensity always lifts, and the stakes are obviously higher. Lapses in concentration prove fatal and the team that hits form at the right time is more likely to win than the superior side that hits a flat spot.
"Coming into finals we want to have, not just a win, but a nice game where we dictate and do the things we want to do," Mullen said. "If we can keep a clean sheet, if we can get some goals then that's going to be important coming into finals."
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