Gary van Egmond has named his starting XI for tonight’s match against the Canberra Rockets at McKellar Park.
Hunter Ports Newcastle Jets head coach Gary van Egmond has named his starting XI for tonight-s match against the Canberra Rockets at McKellar Park.
Ben Kennedy will start in goals with the back four consisting of Scott Neville, Tiago Calvano, Josh Mitchell and Craig Goodwin.
The midfield will feature Ben Kantarovski, Jacob Pepper and Ruben Zadkovich. Ryan Griffiths will lead the forward line with support from James Virgili and James Brown.
Jobe Wheelhouse (foot), Adam Taggart (groin) and Marko Jesic (hip flexor) will sit out the match with injury.
Joshua Brillante, Mitch Cooper, Connor Chapman and Jack Duncan did not travel with the team to Canberra due to their commitments in Indonesia with the Australian under 20-s team.
Van Egmond said he was expecting the Rockets to provide the Jets with a tough test this evening.
“Part of the drawcard for coming down to Canberra was to get the type of match we need at this point of the pre-season,” he said.
“From my time at the AIS, I know the standard within the ACT Premier League is very good, so I have no doubt we-re going to get a decent match.”
As was the case in their first trial game against the Broadmeadow Magic, van Egmond said he expected all available players to feature at some stage throughout the match.
“This is a start of a six-week block of training that is about getting some game-time under the players- belts,” he said.
“We-ve built some miles into their legs. We-re still overloading them but we need to start to look at our fluency and combinations and get our style of play right.
“Hopefully we can see them start to implement the things we are working on at training. Not only with what we-re trying to do on the park, but the mentality as well.”
Match Details:
Newcastle Jets v Canberra Rockets
McKellar Park
Wednesday, July 11
Kick-off 6.30pm
