Eastern Suburbs will look to make history this weekend by winning the ISPS Handa Premiership final for the first time.

The Danny Hay-coached team, who have had an impressive season in which they won 13 games, had four losses and one draw, defeated the Canterbury United Dragons 1-0 in their semi-final to earn a chance of lifting the trophy.

The Lily Whites have lost twice to Team Wellington this season but that will count for little on Sunday at QBE Stadium.

We caught up with former All Whites defender Hay on how his young team has prepared this week for the challenge of facing two-time champions Team Wellington.

Danny, it is an exciting week for your team as we get ready for the ISPS Handa Premiership final, how is the feeling in the squad?

We are looking good. Everyone is fit. We have worked really hard over the last two days in our Tuesday and Wednesday sessions. It is great to be up here at QBE Stadium as we do some work on the outer fields and get a feel for what we will be working with on Sunday. The boys have pulled up really well after the Canterbury game. Everyone is in good spirits and we are looking forward to the opportunity of facing a good team in the final and putting in a good performance on Sunday.

A good performance last week against Canterbury, who are a tough team to beat and had plenty of motivation, what did you take out of that game?

We certainly weren’t at our best on Saturday. We pride ourselves on being able to maintain possession better than what we did at times against Canterbury. But then again we need to remind ourselves that we have a young team, it was a semi-final and there was a huge amount riding on it. Canterbury threw absolutely everything at us. I think the fact that we held on and showed some real resilience, particularly in the last 10 to 15 minutes when Canterbury were looking to go long and put a lot of pressure on us in the defensive third. We take a lot of pride in how we performed in that period. It was a good process to go through leading into this weekend.

You come up against Team Wellington, experienced campaigners who have won this title twice before, what are you expecting from them in the final?

They were very good against Auckland City. We know that Auckland City had a great season, but the way that Wellington turned up, the energy they showed, the willingness to work hard for each other and the structure that José [Figueira] put in place, I thought they were excellent in winning that game and making their way to the final. We know that we are going to up against it. They have beaten us twice already this season. But we feel we have got something to prove. We felt like we weren’t at our best when we played them throughout the course of the regular season. We are excited by that challenge. We are looking forward to testing ourselves against good players and a good team.

The ISPS Handa Premiership final is an exciting day on the football calendar, what do you want to see from your team here at QBE Stadium on Sunday?

It might sound like a bit of a cliché but we want to come off that pitch on Sunday knowing that we did the best that we possibly could and what that looks like in terms of a result who knows. We have a lot of young players and they are on a journey to hopefully bigger and better things. The vast majority of our players want to be professionals and they want to play for their country at a high level. This is part of that process and part of that journey. They will learn a lot from it, no doubt. I just want them to go out there and play with plenty of confidence and not change what we have done so far. I want us to play with a really exciting and attacking mind-set. We want to show our supporters that when it comes to the crunch we play some good quality football.

Eastern Suburbs is a really proud club with a lot of history in the old national league, what would it mean for the club to claim another title and a first ever ISPS Handa Premiership?

I got a bit of a history lesson earlier in the week. The last time Eastern Suburbs were in a national league final was in 1971 so that is pretty special. It is a long time between drinks and the club has been around for a long time. Eastern Suburbs have a proud history and we would like to play as well as we can for the people who have supported us within the club, for the fans and particularly the young players who are coming through. We are trying to create a pathway at the club for the serious young footballer, so we want to put on a good performance for those young players and show them what their future could potentially look like.

In terms of two young players, you have two guys who have led the way in the Golden Boot standings in Callum McCowatt and Andre de Jong, how impressed are you with what they have done in the attacking third?

They are reaping the rewards of what is being done behind them by the other nine or 10 players. They have scored goals for us and they have been clinical for us at times, they possibly could have been a little bit more clinical last week and taken a bit of the pressure off me as coach, but in all seriousness they have been fantastic and that has been a product of what the rest of the team has done.
 

ISPS Handa Premiership Grand Final
Eastern Suburbs vs Team Wellington 
Sunday 31 March, 4.35pm 
Live on SKY Sports 
#ESvTW #ISPSHandaPrem 

Article added: Wednesday 27 March 2019