Wrexham will play their third and final game of their pre-season tour Down Under against the A-League’s New Zealand representatives Wellington Phoenix on Saturday.

Phil Parkinson’s men have been in Australia and New Zealand over the past week or so, enduring differing results across their two games so far.

Match preview

Ahead of their first second-tier season in four decades, Wrexham have prepared with a trip across the other side of the globe, a year on from jetting out to the United States during preseason.

The Welsh club got their preseason off to a great start, beating Melbourne Victory 3-0 last weekend, but they fell to a narrow 2-1 defeat to Sydney FC on Tuesday, despite going in front early on.

There are no further friendlies in the pipeline just yet ahead of Wrexham’s Championship opener against Southampton on August 9, but it is unlikely they will go almost a month without any more preparation ahead of their biggest season for many years.

A three-peat of promotions has seen Wrexham rise from the National League to the Championship in just three years, and they will not stop until they are an established Premier League club.

It will be just a second spell in the second tier in their history, and they have already laid down a statement of intent, signing Ryan Hardie for £700k from Plymouth Argyle, and he was among the scorers in the 3-0 win over Melbourne last week.

Hardie will look to repeat the feat against Wellington, who play in the Australian top flight, despite being from New Zealand, but even though they are an established club in the A-League, they endured a disappointing campaign last season.

Wellington took just 24 points from 26 games, finishing third-from-bottom after losing all of their final four games of the season.

That means they had to play a preliminary match to qualify for the domestic cup, but they beat Brisbane Roar 1-0 shortly after the end of the league season to make it through.

Giancarlo Italiano’s men will now face Perth Glory in the round of 32 next week, in what will be the first official game of the new season for them, so this will be an important friendly for them to get back into the groove of things.

Wrexham Club Friendlies form:

W L

Team News

Wellington Goalkeeper Alby Kelly-Heald will remain out with a shoulder injury here, but Tim Payne could return after a brief setback towards the end of last the campaign.

Sam Sutton and Stefan Colakovski have both left over the summer, but Kosta Barbarouses’s departure to Western Sydney Wanderers will sting the most, considering he netted double figures for goals in both of the last two seasons.

Wrexham’s Oliver Rathbone will undergo a scan on an ankle injury that he picked up in the first half during the defeat to Sydney on Tuesday.

Parkinson used 22 players in that defeat, with Sebastian Revan coming on for Rathbone, before the entire team was changed early in the second half, and there are still a few players who did not get any minutes, who likely will this time around.

Wellington Phoenix possible starting lineup:

Oluwayemi; Sheridan, Hughes, L Kelly-Heald, Piper; Retre, Rufer, Sloane-Rodrigues; Nagasawa, Ishige, Walker

Wrexham possible starting lineup:

Burton; Scarr, Cleworth, O’Connor, Longman; James, Lee, Revan, Mendy; Rodriguez, Hardie

We say: Wellington Phoenix 0-1 Wrexham

Wrexham have had mixed success during preseason so far, but based on last season's A-League table, Wellington are the weakest of the three teams they will face, and should be slight favourites, as they edge closer to full fitness ahead of the new campaign.

For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.

Written by
Andrew Delaney

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