Port Pirates and Sturt Lions will duke it out for a place in the final four when they clash in a Westfield FFA Cup Qualifying quarter-final at Adelaide Shores Football Centre tonight.

Both sides have showed plenty of poise to get where they are and Pirates Senior Coach Derek Hall said the journey had benefited his side greatly.

“We won our last game in extra time thanks to a fantastic goal and yeah we’re very confident going into tomorrow. We’ve worked very hard in training and I watched them play this weekend and we’re all set up for it and looking forward to it.”

Hall said his side has also had to come over some adversely but knew there was only one way to combat such a series of challenges.

“Just by training hard, we’ve had a couple of bad injuries lately with James Skeffington and Jonathan Mavromatis but they both trained this week, so we’ll see how they pull up.”

Despite some possible absentees, Hall said his side will stick to their guns on Wednesday night.

“That’s the only way we know how to play, we’ll attack them and try to score some goals. We’ve scored in every game we've won this year so I expect us to score.”

He also praised the rewards the club has reaped from the Cup and hopes the fun doesn’t stop here.

“It’s very important for the club to get to these stages, it’s a massive boost for the football club and there’ll be lots of support there tomorrow night, we always do. It’d be amazing to get to the last four because once you get there anything can happen.”

One man who will have a say in stopping Hall and Pirates’ fun is Sturt Lions’ Anthony Taylor who talked up his side’s credentials after being the last remaining team from the FFSA State League.

“It’s not really a shock, we always believed that if we played well enough that we’d be there and around the mark and we’ve been around the mark so it hasn’t been too much of a shock.”

“We don’t go into the Port Pirates game feeling like the underdogs, we feel that if we play well we’re pretty confident we can win.”

As Pirates are the first team from the PlayStation 4 National Premier League South Australia the Lions face, Taylor said his side knows they have a challenge on their hands. Something his club welcomes.

“I think obviously being the only NPL team we’ve faced we expect a high standard and that’s no disrespect to the teams we’ve played. They obviously have a good standard.”

“They have a couple of good players and it will be a good test to see where we’re at.”

Taylor was quietly confident his side’s approach will put them in good stead.

“We’re a possession based team, we like to knock the ball around and I think that will suit us on Wednesday night. We know Pirates boys like set pieces and that sort of thing so we have to watch that.”

One factor behind that is the Lions’ even spread of contributors which will no doubt have a strong influence come kick off.

“We’ve had a lot of new players come into the squad and there’s not necessarily been one person you can put our success down to one person, everyone has played their part.”

Article by Matthew Carcich - @Matt_Carcich