The Jets have recovered well from Saturday’s win and are expecting to have a fully fit squad for this week’s game against Perth Glory.
The Hunter Ports Newcastle Jets secured their third consecutive win on Saturday night when they defeated Melbourne Heart 3-0 in front of a vocal home crowd.
Assistant coach Craig Deans said this week-s performance was the closest the team has come to pulling off their game plan in all areas of the game, a game plan which was first introduced when Gary van Egmond arrived at the Jets early in the season.
“It was a good all round team performance, the boys were solid out the back and kept a clean sheet,” Deans said at the team recovery session.
“Ben Kennedy didn-t have to do a lot but when he did he did it very well.
“Jobey (Wheelhouse) and young (Jacob) Pepper we solid again in the midfield and the boys upfront did their job.
“We knew before the game started that Heart were missing a few key players but having said that you have to go and do the job, plenty of times you play against the supposedly weaker team and you don-t perform so it was a good professional performance.”
The Jets will return to the training pitch on Tuesday where they will start to prepare for their week 20 game against Perth Glory.
“It is a tough trip, similar to the Wellington one but you can-t dwell on the travel, Perth played in Sydney on Sunday night and have to go back to Perth and we have to travel over there,” Deans added.
“We need to focus on what we do well and go over there and apply the same effort that we have in our last three to four games.”
The Jets are expecting to have a fully fit squad for Saturday night’s game with Deans saying besides a few niggles everyone should be eligible for selection.
“It was a tough game, for the first 20-30 minutes Heart had a good go but they couldn-t sustain it and we managed to come over the top of them,” he added.
“There are no injuries in our squad at the moment so players are in the team based purely on merit and when you have a full squad to choose from that is a good thing and while players do miss out you can keep the continuity which is an ideal situation.”
