His newborn daughter has played her part now Phoenix captain Andrew Durante hopes he can reciprocate when he leads his team out for the third match of the new A-League season.
Given a day's grace by coach Ricki Herbert so he could bring wife Sarah and first child, Adalyn, home after her birth, Durante has joined his teammates in the West Australian capital for their toughest test of the campaign thus far.
"It was great to spend a night with them before flying off," said Durante before leaving yesterday. "I guess I will be spending the flight catching up on sleep."
Facing one of only two teams above them after a flying start to their season, Durante said they were determined not to leave Perth empty-handed.
"The journey home is tough and doubly so if you have got nothing from the game. I would like to think we can get at least a point but want it to be three. I know a lot of people wrote us off before a ball had been kicked. Considering what we have been through, you couldn't really blame them. Our off-field problems were well publicised and then we suffered long-term injuries to Lucas Pantelis, Vinnie Lia and Mirjan Pavlovic. Despite that, we are still getting the job done which is a credit to the players and staff."
