Every player in Jets’ squad wants to play against Peninsula Power at Wolter Park on Sunday(3pm) – but striker Matt Heath has more reason than most.
He is on the cusp of returning from injury, it's a big local derby, against the club he left last spring and two former team-mates he currently lives with.
“We’re all excited about Sunday’s game. We can’t wait,” said Matt. “I’d love to play against Peninsula Power. It’s killing me inside not being able to help the team. Fingers crossed I’ll be out there.”
Matt scored four goals in five NPL games before the shutdown. Then, early in the first warm-up game, he was injured while scoring and has been watching team-mates for six weeks.
“In patches we have dominated games with good energy,” he said, “but we’re making mistakes which are costing us points. A few more games and we’ll get more rhythm.
“The ladder would suggest the two teams (Power are fifth on 12 points, Jets sixth with nine points) are equal.
“They’ve had injuries to key players which probably hasn’t helped, but they have quality. If they use their full backs well, we’ll be in for a battle.”
Coach Royce Brownlie, who was at Power before joining Jets in 2013, is glad to be back home – “at our fortress,” he said.
“We’ve had four away games (three 1-1 draws and a defeat). No-one is going to those teams (Knights, Redlands, Gold Coast United, Capalaba) and taking easy points.
“The big thing this year is about creating a culture of playing football. (At Capalaba) we lost to a team which took its chances and a couple of errors in defence.
“The flip side is we created enough chances to win 10 games. We were 2-0 up going into half time and very comfortable.
“Unfortunately Strogs missed a chance in the six-yard box, Linden a one-on-one, Declan a one-on-one and right at the end Danny Champness has a header close in.
“The players have been self-analysing and we’ve all been putting little chats out there. There’s positive feedback on the mistakes, we could have done better there, we could have done this, we could have done that.
“Everyone wants to do positive things. That’s what we’re creating here and I think if we keep playing we’ll have a chance on Sunday.”