Words: Michael Flynn
Image: FNQ FC Heat

FNQ Heat attacker Crios O’Hare has no doubt his side can return to winning ways against Stratford FC in the Westfield FFA Cup.

Heat host their third-tier FNQ Premier League opposition at Barlow Park on Wednesday night in Far North Queensland Zone Qualifying Round 5, with the winner due to play North Queensland Qualifiers Northern Fury in the next round.

O’Hare said a win in the cup could prove the catalyst Heat need to find consistency in the league, with the side sitting in eighth position with only three wins from their opening ten matches.

“It’s no secret that we haven’t started the season well and we keep looking forward to the next game to kick our season off,” he said.

“We are looking to last year when we had a slow start and then in the same competition, the FFA Cup, we built up a bit of confidence with a few wins.”

“That helped us with our season and hopefully it will be the same this year. A win against Stratford could certainly kick-start our year.”

Despite the mixed bag of results in PlayStation® 4 NPL Queensland, Heat boast one of the most potent attacks in the competition with Alex Smith and Jamie Carroll both early season contenders for the Golden Boot award in 2015.

However, O’Hare explained that it isn’t as simple as saying Heat’s returns are solely a result of defensive frailties.

“A lot has been spoken up here up here about whether our attackers are not scoring enough goals or whether our defence is leaking in too many goals,” he explained.

“But it’s our team performance where we need to get better. Although we have scored a lot of goals we can always score more and at the back we need to tighten up and keep a lot more clean sheets than we do.”

“We don’t like to split it up and saying the problem is at the back and we are fine everywhere else because the first line of the defence is up top, so we need to be better all over the park.”

O’Hare also dismissed criticism from the state’s southern corner that the northern regional qualification pathway to the Westfield FFA Cup is not as difficult with only two PlayStation 4 NPL Queensland clubs in the zone.

He said regional representation was vitally important to showcasing Queensland football as a whole in the national Round of 32.

“It’s easy for the Brisbane clubs to say it’s not fair on them but at the end of the day the part-time players at the Heat and Fury are travelling to Brisbane every second week and giving up our weekends."

“We don’t complain about that being unfair and I think (the southern clubs) need to suck it up a little bit because they get treated quite well in this league,” he concluded.

Fixture details:

Westfield FFA Cup Far North Queensland Zone Qualifying Round 5
FNQ FC Heat v Stratford FC
Barlow Park, Cairns
Wednesday, May 20
Kick-off - 8:00pm