Herbert: Phoenix seen as real 'threat'

Ricki Herbert believes his golden run is far from finished and predicts the Phoenix will go deeper into the playoffs by beating the Newcastle Jets in Wellington today.

Herbert has been in World Cup mode with the All Whites over the past fortnight, on a scouting mission to South Africa ahead of the World Cup and then coaching the All Whites against Mexico in Los Angeles.

Along with Leo Bertos, Tim Brown, Ben Sigmund and Tony Lochhead, he arrived home yesterday morning from from LA and while Herbert is feeling tired, he's also buoyant about this manic spell.

"I am in such a good place, I don't want it to end," he told the Sunday Star-Times when discussing the travel demands. "It's just such stimulating stuff for the game ... who would want it to stop?"

From the euphoria of watching the national team play in front of a sell-out crowd of 90,000 at the Rose Bowl, Herbert will call the shots in front of another sellout at Westpac Stadium. "Who would have ever thought that when the Phoenix started we would get 35,000 to the game."

For Herbert, the past few months have been the best in his professional life.

"Two things I was responsible for was getting a team to the world cup and getting a team to the playoffs. But I've done it and I am really proud of that. It's something people didn't think was possible, but I've done it. And maybe we're not finished yet. We've exceeded most people's expectations, but there is still a lot of hunger in this team."

Herbert's travel schedule means he's had little input into the Phoenix in the past two weeks since they beat Perth but he said his international commitments over the past two weeks were "irrelevant" in terms of the Nix preparation, because the side had been without at six players on All Whites and Socceroos duties.

The four All Whites and two Socceroos, Jon McKain and Andrew Durante, will back-up from mid-week internationals while Adrian Caceres also returns after a break while his wife gave birth.

And Herbert has welcomed Newcastle Jets coach Branko Culina's demand that his team be ejected from the A-League as a sign that the Wellington Phoenix have finally arrived as a footballing power and are making other teams "nervous".

Culina said last weekend the Phoenix risked becoming the New Zealand national side by stealth and should be thrown out. On the eve of the Phoenix's sold-out minor semifinal encounter with the Jets, a smiling Herbert said. "That's good. People see us as a threat, and that's great. There's probably been valid reasons in the past to push us to one side and see us just as a minnow. But we've had over 100,000 people to our last four fixtures, we're pulling bigger crowds than Sydney and we had four times what Branko had to his last game of the season. So I think we've made an incredibly strong statement and it's making people nervous and I couldn't be more pleased with that."

Injured goalkeeper Mark Paston is Herbert's fifth regular All White and he's comfortable with the number of New Zealand internationals in his side.

"What I was keen to do in year one was to show you can bring in New Zealand players and be successful – because they were always the 19th and 20th signings at a club and you had all these overseas world-beaters, who all did nothing. I wanted to reverse that and get a reputation out there and show Kiwis could play an integral part in a successful A-League team.

"Look at Shane Smeltz; I didn't see any other clubs chasing him in year one. I think we've made that statement."

"As the club develops, these decisions may get more difficult. We may bring in more [Kiwis], I don't know. It will be based on whether the players are good enough.

- © Fairfax NZ News