Havelock North Wanderers eye comeback opportunity

Havelock North Wanderers' Dakota Lucas will be hoping his side celebrates a victory against Wellington United in the second leg of the Central League playoff home at Guthrie Park.

Havelock North Wanderers are excited for their opportunity to complete an unlikely comeback against Wellington United in the second leg of the Central League playoff at Guthrie Park on Saturday.

Wellington won the first leg 5-3 last weekend, and Wanderers coach Chris Greatholder admitted the tie looked to be out of his team's grasp until an injury time goal to Jerome Groot reduced the deficit to two goals.

"All to play for, we've got a lot of belief and a lot of hope," he said.

"I thought we more than matched them in the second half and put in a decent performance."

Greatholder said a key focus in training this week has been keeping the game really tight defensively and suffocating certain areas of the field to stifle United.

He said his team also need to be more clinical in the final third, knowing they will need at least two goals.

The away goals rule means Havelock North could win the tie with a 2-0, 3-1 or 4-2 victory, or any other scoreline that sees them lead on aggregate.

"We've only gotta score a goal in the first 10 minutes and all of a sudden it can change the whole complexion of the game," Greatholder said.

The Central Federation League Champions will have to balance their need to catch up with the fact that conceding any away goals could prove fatal.

"It is a weird thing to navigate to be perfectly honest," the coach said.

"I think it'd be silly of us to go too gung-ho early on, but obviously we've gotta be mindful of at some stage we've gotta go and score goals."

He said that means they may have to take more risks as the game goes on:

"I've got a plan A, B, C, D in my back pocket at the moment for different eventualities."

Greatholder said the one-off, winner takes all nature of the game will make for a cool occasion and he is confident the strong community backing the Wanderers have had all year will translate to a real home field advantage.

"What we can do is put on a show and give it the biggest go we can," he said.

"To have an opportunity to go and finish [the season] off in a big way is pretty neat."

Kickoff is set for 2pm on Saturday at Guthrie Park, while the game will also be streamed on YouTube by Cello Sport.