The Newcastle Jets will be looking to maintain their stellar record against the Melbourne Victory at Hunter Stadium on Friday.
The Hunter Ports Newcastle Jets will be looking to maintain their stellar record against the Melbourne Victory when the two sides meet at Hunter Stadium on Friday night.
Since the inception of the A-League in 2005/06, the Jets have defeated the Victory on 10 occasions – more times than any other Club in the competition.
Excluding the now defunct New Zealand Knights, North Queensland Fury and Gold Coast United, the Jets have their best head-to-head record in the A-League against the Victory with a winning percentage of 47.62%.
Melbourne have won seven of the matches played between the two Clubs while there have also been four draws.
Newcastle-s record against Melbourne is even more formidable at their home ground Hunter Stadium with the Jets winning six of the 10 matches between the two teams at the venue.
Among those triumphs was a 4-0 drubbing in January 2007 that equalled the record for the Jets- biggest ever win in the A-League.
In fact, the Victory have to look as far back as October 2009 for their last win over the Jets in Newcastle.
However, despite the Jets- encouraging record against this weekend-s opponents, Newcastle assistant coach Craig Deans says they are well aware of the challenge the Victory will pose on Friday night.
“Obviously they had their first win last Friday night and that-s going to give them confidence, especially with their new coach,” Deans said.
“It will give them belief that they-re on the right track and it-s up to us to try and put a stop to that if.”
Deans said the Jets would have to keep a close eye on Melbourne-s attacking threats such as Archie Thompson, Marcos Flores and Marco Rojas.
“Individually they-re excellent players, but I think if you can limit the amount of opportunities they have to get on the ball, that will be an important factor in the game from our point of view,” he said.
“Defensively we have to make sure we don-t switch off at any point in time when the opposition has players with that sort of individual talent.”
Deans said he was hoping to see another bumper crowd at Hunter Stadium on Friday night as the Jets look to make their home ground a fortress.
“The Membership team has done a great job in getting Memberships over 11,000 and if we can get another crowd of 15,000 plus, it gives the players a big boost to have that sort of support.”
Match details:
Newcastle Jets v Melbourne Victory
Hunter Stadium
Friday, October 26
Kick-off 7.30pm (Gates open 6.30pm)
Tickets available from PROticket.
