Stung by a fine for speaking out against referee Antony Riley following his team's loss to YoungHeart Manawatu, Waitakere United coach Chris Milicich is vowing his lips will remain sealed as his team chase a return to their New Zealand Football Championship winning ways in the deep southtoday.
Milicich was angered about the red card shown to goalkeeper Simon Eaddy, which he felt led to his team's 3-2 loss to Manawatu.
"It won't be a sleepy Waitakere who turn up at Carisbrook," Milicich promised yesterday before they flew to Dunedin. "Some of the lads are pretty upset over what happened [in the incident which saw goalkeeper Simon Eaddy sent off]. They want to get back to where we were."
Commins Menapi, likely to be sidelined with a groin injury for 3-5 weeks, joined Eaddy in missing the trip.
Auckland City, back on top following their 2-0 home win over Waikato FC, square off with Team Wellington at the Croatian Cultural Society's ground at 3pm.
Captain Ben Sigmund returns to add steel to the City defence but coach Colin Tuaa is still without some key players including Bryan Little, who has been joined in second place on the golden boot ladder by brother Graham who heads the Wellington attack.
James Pritchett, Riki van Steeden and Rupesh Puna are all missing from the City defence but, as they showed against Waikato, they have good depth and will be ready to battle the visitors.
In other games today, Hawkes Bay have home advantage in their game with Waikato, who have won six of these encounters in the past, and YoungHeart Manawatu will chase a second successive victory in Christchurch against Canterbury United.
