After their slow start to the season, Sydney FC coach Steve Corica is confident the reigning A-League champions are timing their run into form perfectly.

The Sky Blues sit sixth after a 3-0 win over Melbourne Victory on Sunday night but with six wins, four draws and four losses to start the season, are playing the role of hunters rather than league leaders.

Corica said his side hadn’t “peaked yet” and backed their improvement to continue as the season progressed.

“We’ve always been chasing a bit and I think that’s because of the games (backlog) as well, because we’ve always been one or two games behind everyone else,” Corica said.

“We just probably weren’t where we wanted to be performance-wise.

“So, I think we’re starting to come together now and we’ll improve towards the end of the season.

“This is the best time of year because it is coming to the business end of the season and you want to be in a very good position to win it.”

Sunday’s clash was the first of three games in seven days, with Sydney facing Perth on Wednesday then Melbourne City on Saturday, with striker Trent Buhagiar set to return from a knee injury in the latter game.

The Sky Blues now have three home games in a row – a welcome relief to Corica after a “stop-start” first half of the season and seven consecutive games in NSW.

They won’t leave their home state again until their May 15 away game against Western United.

“When you have short turnarounds and you’re staying in the state, it helps. You don’t do that travelling,” Corica said.

“We’ve got the Wanderers coming up as well soon (and) Central Coast. They’re all big games, (those) two clubs are above us at the moment.

“We can catch these teams up by beating them and no game’s easy as you can see, it’s difficult.

“The A-League’s very tight at the moment, and I think it’ll go down to the wire this year.”

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