Southern United coach Kris Ridley. Photo: Gregor Richardson Kris Ridley is totally fine if you mention the 7-0 scoreline. In fact, the Southern United coach freely and promptly brings it up to emphasise his point about how far his side has come in a relatively short space of time. He "couldn’t be more proud," he said. It was a rough but not entirely surprising introduction to the national league for Ridley when he jetted home from a long spell on the Gold Coast to take the head coaching role at Southern. He had about 10 days to work with the team, and the draw did it no favours. A 6-1 loss to Western Springs first up was followed by a 7-0 shellacking at the hands of Auckland United. But those dark days seem long ago now. Southern has since lost just one game out of seven, and sits a solid fifth — just three points off third — in the national league. Funnily enough, Southern is four points above Auckland United before the rematch in the north tomorrow afternoon. "They will know we are a different team now and that we’ve progressed," Ridley said. "I can probably safely say it won’t be 7-0 to Auckland United. "I think we’re in with a chance to put in a really good performance." Southern’s extremely limited preparation was put into context by the fact the club-based teams in the national league had been playing together all year. Ridley knew the start of the season would be tricky but he also, when he started, expressed confidence his team would improve quickly, and that has certainly been the case. "We had very little time to work on what we wanted, or to set goals like a normal season. "But all in all, when you look at what we’ve done over nine games, we’re improving and getting better and ticking off small goals each week. "The performance from the girls over the past two games has really shown they have improved a whole lot. "They know they can beat these teams, and their attitude and belief is something you just can’t coach. "Progression-wise, I’m really proud of the girls and how they’ve turned up every week. "As a coach, I feel like we’re ticking all the boxes we want to be ticking. I couldn’t be more proud." Ridley thought fourth or fifth in the league would be a commendable effort, and anything higher was a bonus. A mini-focus over the final weeks would be trying to beat two of the three Auckland teams. "We just want to show that they’ve had 25-30 games together, and we’ve only had nine, but we are starting to really develop," Ridley said. Tomorrow’s game is also significant as it will be the last this season for two players who have been in exceptional form. Rookie winger Jasmine Prince is off travelling for the summer, and classy defender Hannah Mackay-Wright is bound for surgery on her injured ankle. Tomorrow’s game kicks off at 1.45pm.
