As the National League Championship continues to develop just past the halfway point, we caught up with Wellington Olympic regular Jack-Henry Sinclair. After a largely successful season in the Central League where Sinclair helped Olympic to the Central League title, We spoke to him about the team's goals this season, the philosophy of the team as well as his place in the squad as one of the group’s leaders as they look to challenge once again for the National League Championship. 

After 2 draws and a win in the 3 most recent matches, What's the general mood around the camp at the moment?

“The Feeling is really good, we had a couple of draws before Auckland United, we weren’t panicking but we were hoping that this wouldn't continue, we did well to catch up in both those games, we are unbeaten still but it shows where the club is getting to, we’re unbeaten but we know its not good enough for where we want to be, if you switch off at bad times, lose the ball in bad areas you can find yourself fighting to get back into games.” 

“We spoke before the United game about what we can do differently to start strongly. I think we’ve only conceded one goal in the second half of games but we conceded a lot early, so what can we do to start strong and maintain that?  We want to enjoy our training and so we've modified training for the last few weeks so that we’re working hard and have fun at the same time, and because of that we went into the game against Auckland United with a great mindset and got a positive result.”

What do you think of the new teams that are on the rise in football, do you see it as a good thing that there's so much competition for championship spots and do you guys welcome the challenge from the rest of the country? 

“Yeah for sure, the league is stronger than it was last year, you see teams like Manurewa beating Christchurch, and even when we played them we found it really tough, we’re not used to how some of these teams set up and so it’s a great challenge.”

“You’re used to playing teams like Eastern Suburbs and Auckland City, it's interesting traveling to play at other grounds like Keith Hay Park, so we definitely welcome the new challenges that come with facing teams like Manurewa, Christchurch United, Auckland United. I welcome the strong competition as it just makes the league better.”

Wellington Olympic are known for their attacking philosophy, who is most responsible for that mindset?

“It's a collective mindset that our coach pushes, that foot on the throat mentality, sometimes we go 2-1, 3-1 up and we know you want to try to kill off games because every team has it in them to come back, it's just about that foot on the throat mentality. Some of us just want to keep playing and keep scoring despite the scoreline, we want to win games and win games well.”

“We want to be entertaining, a lot of people watch us online and watch us at home games, we want to be the most entertaining team, any neutral fan that comes to watch the game, we want them to know there's gonna be goals and good football, we don't want to be boring and sometimes we’d rather win a game 6-3 than 1-0.”

As one of the Consistent performers for Wellington Olympic do you find that there are leadership responsibilities that come with that? 

“Yes, we have a strong leadership group, there's 5-6 of us that have played 7 years plus in national league and the old comp things like that, the coach is a huge part of that too but we know that if it's not good enough we have to push it and grab people who are struggling and help pull them up, Ben mata, Scott Basalaj and others that are vocal leaders and for me I'm more of one of those leaders that does their thing on the pitch and sets the tone with how I play but we have lots of leaders at the club which helps a lot.”

Credit:Photosport

How happy are you with your start to the league stats wise?

“I’m pretty happy, started off pretty well with 4 goals in the last 2 games, haven't scored in the last 3 but hopefully something I’ll be getting back into in the coming games, but it's great to assist goals too.”

“It's great to be amongst the goals and personal achievements are great but after last year (losing the final) I think my main goal is just to make it back to the final and finally win and that starts with getting results each week.”

This weekend you face a familiar opponent in Petone, what do you think of them and what is it you think Olympic can do to help you get a positive result?

“They’re an opponent that can switch up pretty quickly, they learned quickly from a bad result against us in the chatham cup and flipped it on us in the central league. They’re a young team that likes to play out from the back but with our experience in the team we need to use that against them and front up physically. Although they're bottom of the table, anyone can win in the National League, they’re playing nice football, we just need to make sure we step up on them, we press them and we take our chances when they come.”

National League championship finalists last year, does the team hope it's now time to go one better? 

“Yeah definitely, we hope it's time to go one better, it would be fantastic to win in such a big game, but there's still a lot of football to play before that's even possible, obviously we need to make the final first but that's the goal to qualify for the final, win the final and celebrate after.”