Friday night is being billed as a "massive opportunity" for Newcastle's extended squad members to put their best foot forward with at least seven Jets regulars out of action.
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Jets captain Nigel Boogaard, attacking duo Dimi Petratos and Ronald Vargas, defender Daniel Georgievski, midfielder Ben Kantarovski and goalkeeper Glen Moss have been rested for the A-League clash with Melbourne City at McDonald Jones Stadium.
It comes with Newcastle travelling to Japan to meet the Kashima Antlers on Tuesday, striving for a place in the Asian Champions League group stage.
This means the likes of Jake Adelson, Pat Langlois, Kosta Petratos, Jack Simmons and Noah James have been promoted to Newcastle's round-19 squad.
Joe Champness, returning from a foot injury, was also named in the 18.
In the mix to make the first XI are goalkeeper Lewis Italiano, Ivan Vujica and Jair. Same goes for Kaine Sheppard, Matthew Ridenton, Lachlan Jackson, Nick Cowburn and Angus Thurgate, who all played some part in a 3-1 extra-time win over Persija Jakarta at home on Tuesday.
Nikolai Topor-Stanley, Johnny Koutroumbis, Steven Ugarkovic and Roy O'Donovan are the only starting players set to back up from the midweek ACL play-off.
"We're going to have four or five [players] that make up the starting XI that may not have been starters this season," Jets assistant coach Clayton Zane said after training at Ray Watt Oval on Thursday.
"It's a massive opportunity to try and stake a claim for not only the next [A-League] home game against Adelaide, but also potentially more [Asian] Champions League matches."
Zane said the Jets, who are seventh on the competition ladder and eight points outside the top six with nine rounds left, had to "nurse" a few key personnel through this "run of games".
Newcastle (19) trail fifth-placed City (28) by nine points. Upon returning from Tokyo, the Jets host fourth-placed Adelaide (30) next Sunday.
"I don't think we need to sell it to players that we need to stand up and perform and back up from games," Zane said.
"You look at the last six games we've had - we've won four, drawn one and only lost one against the leaders of the competition Perth."
Free agent Kwabena Appiah started trialling with the Jets on Thursday.
Meanwhile, former Victory player Georgievski was linked to new A-League franchise the Western Melbourne Group via social media on Thursday.
