Reid – Ready, Willing and Able

He’s had stints with Bradford City, Adelaide United, Melbourne Heart and Sydney FC, but evergreen Rockdale City Suns midfielder Paul Reid is about to add another highlight to his already impressive resume when he lines up against Bonnyrigg White Eagles in this weekend’s blockbuster IGA National Premier League Mens 1 grand final.
Reid and the Suns have steamrolled their way through the business end of the season courtesy of three nail-biting 120-minute semi-final clashes leaving Marconi Stallions FC, Sutherland Sharks and most recently Sydney United 58 FC all in their wake.
“It’s been a sudden death approach throughout the past six weeks for us,” explained an upbeat Reid.
“In reality our ‘finals series’ began back in the last three rounds of the regular season because we knew that if we dropped any of those three games we wouldn’t have made the semis.”
The grand final match-up pits one of the best attacking sides in Bonnyrigg (44 goals for in the regular season) against the best defensive side in Rockdale who were the only team in the league to concede less than a goal per game on average throughout the 22 rounds.
“Obviously Bonnyrigg are entitled to start as favourites this weekend, but we’re heading into this grand final with nothing to lose, we’re up for it and we definitely know what we have to do to win the game,” added Reid.
“Traditionally they [Bonnyrigg] are a very big and strong team who score a lot of goals so we need to stop them from creating chances by putting a lot of pressure on them. We pride ourselves on being the best defensive team in the league and obviously our strong defence will be up for the challenge, and while we are known as a side that defends very well we are also capable of scoring plenty of goals up front too.
“We’re one of the fittest teams in the league so by being able to maintain pressure on them when they do have the ball will be one of our key aspects heading into the game.”
Much of the Suns success can be credited to Reid who is in scintillating form, but it’s the 34-year-old’s fitness throughout his side’s late season charge that has set tongues wagging in the football community.
“You’ve got to look after yourself, not only on the day of the game, but throughout the entire week leading into it. It’s important to train hard when you do train and on the days off you need to eat right and keep yourself hydrated.”
Reid claims that he won’t be doing anything different in the lead up to his most important match of the year and that includes ‘polishing his boots’ the night before the game.
“It’s something I’ve done throughout my entire career,” Reid says with a wry smile.
“Whether it’s made me play better by polishing them the night before rather than the day of I’m not sure – but it’s something I’ve always done.”
-By Gary McDonald