HAVING joined the Newcastle Jets in a quest for more opportunity, Olyroo Connor O'Toole is eager to make up for lost time now that the season has resumed after the coronavirus hiatus.
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O'Toole, who played 31 A-League games for Brisbane Roar, signed an 18-month contract with Newcastle in late January but had to wait until March 23 to debut for his new club, in a 2-1 win against Melbourne City.
Unfortunately for the left back, that was the last game before the season was suspended.
All A-League teams returned to training this week, which gives the Jets slightly more than a month to prepare for their next game, against competition leaders Sydney FC on July 21.
The defending champions have built an eight-point lead at the top of the table, with three games in hand.
But O'Toole said the Jets, who have won three and drawn two of their six matches since new coach Carl Robinson took charge, would embrace the challenge of ambushing the Sky Blues.
"They [Sydney] were flying .... but before the break we were on a high as well," O'Toole said.
Newcastle have four regular-season games remaining - against Sydney, Central Coast (July 24), Western United (August 3) and Wellington (August 11) - and are three points behind the top six, some of whom have played a game or two fewer. The Jets appear long shots to make the finals, but stranger things have happened.
"What would be important for us will be to take each game as it comes," O'Toole said.
After joining Newcastle, the 22-year-old initially had to bide his time behind Irish import Bobby Burns.
But Burns' return to Scottish club Hearts leaves O'Toole as the leading candidate to line up on the left side of Newcastle's back four.