Wellington Phoenix skipper Andrew Durante hopes his and Ben Sigmund's superior knowledge of Perth Glory striker Shane Smeltz can help keep the in-form No 9 under wraps in their A-League minor semifinal on Saturday.
Smeltz has been the talk of the competition after netting seven goals in his past two games, including three on Sunday night as Perth knocked the Melbourne Heart out of the playoffs as they beat the Victorians 3-0 in their elimination final.
Sigmund and Durante are former teammates of Smeltz at the Phoenix, while Sigmund and Smeltz are long-time members of the All Whites.
With that in mind, Durante said he would love to keep Smeltz scoreless at nib Stadium on Saturday.
"Yeah, I'd like to think so and I hope that turns out to be the situation,'' Durante said.
"But, like I said, I felt Melbourne Heart were really off their game against Perth and especially the centre halves gave him way too much room in and behind the defence. So we'll definitely be doing a tighter job on him there and we'll be keeping a close eye on him and I think it does help that we have played with him. We know we can't give him any inches in and around the box because he's quite deadly.''
The Phoenix have departed New Zealand and are in the middle of a two-day build-up in Sydney to acclimatise to Australian conditions ahead of Saturday's game.
Wellington have never won a playoff game on the road, but the Phoenix have set about smashing their poor history in Australia this season and won three-straight across the Tasman in January and February.
"We've been fairly good this year on the road, which has probably increased our confidence,'' Durante said.
"We've been very poor before but we've got three wins on the trot at one stage during the year, so we all believe that we can get one on the road and it's a semifinal game.
"You don't need too much to get yourself up for this one, so I think it'll be a good one.''
The Phoenix have a fit 16-man squad to choose from for this weekend's clash and appear unlikely to tinker with their winning formula that saw them beat Sydney FC 3-2 in Wellington last Friday night.
The winner of this weekend's clash will meet either Central Coast or Brisbane in the preliminary final next weekend, with a spot in the grand final on the line.
During the regular season, Wellington and Perth met three times and every clash ended in a 1-0 score line; Perth triumphed twice, and Wellington won the other encounter.
Traditionally, like most sides in the A-League, the Phoenix have struggled in Perth and the bookies have installed the Western Australians as $1.47 favourites to progress to the next round of the playoffs.
Playing as the underdogs is something which doesn't bother the Phoenix and they have fed off that during a season where they were tipped as the early front-runners to claim the wooden spoon.
This weekend could potentially see foundation player Tim Brown's last match for the club, after he announced he would retire at the end of this season in a bid to further his studies.
