The club announced on Tuesday that the 36-year-old would be elevated from assistant coach and take over from Craig Deans, who is filling in as head coach of the Jets A-League side after the axing of Ernie Merrick last week.

"Deansy is doing what's best for the club and we all have a part to play in that," Wilson said. "He loves working with the girls and this is his job. He's the head coach of this team and he's not stepping away from it lightly.

"But in terms of what the team needs for consistency and what the club needs in order to make sure that in this interim that both teams are managed as best as possible then this was the solution."

Wilson, who played for Northern NSW Pride in the now-defunct Women's National Soccer League, was "grateful for the opportunity" and "looking forward to the challenge" of being head coach.

"I'm a Newcastle girl. I played national league here, so for me it's an honour to be in this role and to work with this bunch of girls," Wilson said. "I've been around them for the last five years so I'm proud and I'm honoured and hopefully I can do the right thing by the team and make the community proud."

The first order of business in her new position will be tackling unbeaten league leaders Melbourne City in Melbourne on Saturday.

The Jets will be desperate for victory this weekend to keep their season alive. They are seventh on four points, nine adrift of the top four with five games to play.

The sides drew 1-1 in the opening round but City have not dropped a point since to be leading the competition with 22 points.

"We can't avoid the fact that we're in a difficult position sitting on four points," Wilson said. "Finals is still a real possibility for us but we have to work for it. We have to win games. We definitely have to get a result out of this weekend to still be in contention.

"We're looking forward to it and the girls have still got a lot of belief in what they're doing. They're still working hard. They still want to push those standards and one of the positive things going into this week is we're the only team that have taken points off them this season."

Wilson said it was "business as usual for us" this week despite the coaching disruptions.

"As a coaching staff we all talked about," Wilson said. "We sat down with the players and talked about it and talked to the leadership group before that and this is what we feel is best for everyone.

"Deansy and I don't have too dissimilar thoughts about key principles. We like to be positive in attack and we want to play a forward, attacking style of game but obviously being organised in defence is important, so not too much is going to change."

Defender Annabel Martin remains the only Jets player unavailable for selection to travel to Melbourne this weekend due to injury.