Lucas Neill banking on clean sheets

* Marco Monteverde, Johannesburg
* From: The Australian
* June 03, 2010

AS simple and obvious as it sounds, Australia's World Cup motto might as well be "we can't lose if the other team doesn't score".

Socceroos captain Lucas Neill hinted as much the day before his side's friendly against Denmark, with his words almost prophetic considering the nature of Australia's performance at Roodepoort Athletics Stadium, and the final result.

"We just have to make sure we have to keep ourselves in every game by keeping clean sheets, being hard to beat, being hard to score against and giving ourselves a chance to progress and beat teams perhaps 1-0," Neill said 24 hours before the battle with the Danes.

And that's essentially what happened in Roodepoort. The Socceroos absorbed some early pressure from Denmark, compressed the action into a rolling third of the park before profiting from a lucky deflection and Danish hesitancy in dealing with a cross to score a winner - via an otherwise quiet Josh Kennedy - to snatch a 1-0 win.

It was perhaps no coincidence that the Socceroos defence lifted a notch following the re-unification of coach Pim Verbeek's tried and tested back four - Neill, his central defensive partner Craig Moore, and fullbacks Luke Wilkshire and Scott Chipperfield.

Eight days earlier in Australia's fortunate 2-1 win over New Zealand in Melbourne, Wilkshire and Chipperfield didn't play, a rusty Moore struggled and Neill seemed out-of-sorts.

It was a different story in Roodepoort. Much sharper after almost two weeks on the training track, the Moore-Neill partnership was back to its best, with Vince Grella providing the necessary grunt in front of the back four.

Perhaps ominously for the Australians before their World Cup adventure, the Danes looked most dangerous in the second half when David Carney assumed the left fullback role previously occupied by Chipperfield.

While he might be decent going forward, Carney's defensive deficiencies were again exposed. The Socceroos must be hoping that Chipperfield's ageing body holds up during the tournament.

Problems remain in attack, with Kennedy's goal covering the cracks of an otherwise timid display from the big man.

As good as Tim Cahill is in his attacking midfielder/second striker role, he can't be expected to save the Socceroos' bacon every time.

And at least one Socceroo is happy the team is switching its training base from St Stithians to Roodepoort Athletics Stadium despite the latter's crumbling playing surface.

Attacking midfielder Mark Bresciano isn't a big fan of the firmness of the pitch at St Stithians College, where the Socceroos will continue to train until Saturday's friendly match against the US at Roodepoort.

The day after the World Cup warm-up battle, Roodepoort will become the Socceroos' new training base.

"I prefer this (Roodepoort) ground compared to where we train (St Stithians) because our training pitch at the moment is very hard," Bresciano said.

Meanwhile, Verbeek has cut five players - Rhys Williams, Shane Lowry, Tommy Oar, James Holland and Eugene Galekovic - from his final World Cup squad named last night.

Verbeek said Middlesbrough defender Williams had an injury and would immediately return home to England.

The 23-man Australian squad is:

Goalkeepers: Mark Schwarzer, Adam Federici, Brad Jones.

Defenders: Scott Chipperfield, David Carney, Lucas Neill, Michael Beauchamp, Craig Moore, Mark Milligan, Luke Wilkshire.

Midfielders: Vince Grella, Carl Valeri, Jason Culina, Mile Jedinak, Tim Cahill, Brett Holman, Dario Vidosic, Mark Bresciano, Brett Emerton, Richard Garcia.

Strikers: Nikita Rukavytsya, Josh Kennedy, Harry Kewell.


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