Champs Lae City fired up

By PARKER TAMBUA
DEFENDING champions Lae City are hungry to move past last week’s upset loss to Vitiaz United when they take on Bougainville in round six of the Kumul Petroleum National Soccer League at PNG Football Stadium in Port Moresby tomorrow.
According to coach Peter Gunemba his side went to the drawing board straight after the loss and had identified where they went wrong.
Gunemba said his men were fired up for tomorrow’s clash and were looking at putting in a lot more energy in defence and getting their midfield back to its best.
“Our biggest problem last week was counter defence and coordination in the midfield,” Gunemba said. “We hardly contested in defence and we also had problems in the midfield.
“Troy (Gunemba) was sick and he did not play which left a hole in the middle, instead of having a square midfield we had a triangular midfield which resulted in Raymond (Gunemba) and Nigel (Dabinyaba) not getting good balls to score.
“Aguirre (Abdias Aguirre) is a specialist midfielder and he will fill that void on his debut. Our defence structure will be back as usual this time and we will not take this game lightly.
“Our team work, reading each other’s body language and on field and instincts have to work.”
Gunemba said the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) Champions League was only two weeks away and they needed to get into form over the next two NSL matches in order to be competitive against the region’s best teams.
“The good thing is that the loss last weekend has stirred a positive anger to not repeat what has been done. It has driven the boys to come back and self-assess and ask where we want to be.”
City will run a full strength side against Bougainville tomorrow.