CARETAKER coach Craig Deans is treating the Jets' pre-season friendly against Macarthur FC at Maitland Sportsground on Thursday as an A-League game.
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Deans has selected the strongest XI available, presented a pre-game analysis on the competition's new boys and has followed a normal match-week routine.
"Last week we trained heavily going into the game against Edgeworth (5-0 win)," Deans said. "We knew that we would have the ball for a lot of the game and the work rate needed wasn't going to be as high.
"This game is completely different.
"We have had a normal week of training and been able to look at Macarthur, do a proper analysis on them and present it to the players. It has been probably the first normal week we have had in pre-season.
"The Mariners' game (2-0 loss) was our third week of training and we hadn't seen them play a game in pre-season. That was a bit of a turn up and get out of it what we can.
"This one has more of a feel of a proper game about it."
Macarthur went down 2-1 to the Olyroos in their most recent trial and boast a mix of experience - headed by ex-Premier League veteran Matt Derbyshire and Socceroos Mark Milligan,Aleksandar Susnjar and Ivan Franjic - and young players.
"They will be super competitive," Deans said. "They have played four or five games now and had a few more weeks training. It will definitely be challenging for us but I think we are ready for that sort of game.
"We will play our strongest team and we want to try and win the game.
"Obviously there are certain aspects football-wise you want to get out of it, but I think the big picture is always being successful and winning. Winning gives you confidence, winning gives you enjoyment to train and to work harder. And it builds a great mindset. That was important on the weekend even though it was against NPL opposition. It's important to win games, get back that feeling and take it into the next game."
Olyroos Ramy Najjarine and Connor O'Toole each scored first-half doubles against Edgeworth.
Though happy with their contribution, Deans wants more from the front third.
"The areas where we have lost players is the front third," he said. "Dimi Petratos is gone, Abdiel Arroyo is gone, Bernie Ibini is not available at the moment, Matt Millar is not available at the moment, we had Bobby Burns for a period last year ... probably the wingbacks and the attacking area of the field is where we need to keep building cohesion.
"Everyone knows with those positions it takes a little bit of time to get those combinations right. Hopefully every game we play with Ramy, Roy O'Donovan, Val Yuel, Kosta Petratos or whoever comes into those positions, we can get a bit more of fluency about it."
Ibini, who wants to leave the club, wasn't at training on Wednesday.
"He had a migraine on Tuesday,"Deans said. "Everyone knows the situation with Bernie. When he comes to training we look after him as best we can and include him as best we can."
Jets (3-5-2): Jack Duncan; Johnny Koutorumbis, Nigel Boogaard,Nikolai Topor-Stanley; Jason Hoffman, Steve Ugarkovic, Gun Thurgate, Ramy Najjarine, Connor O'Toole; Valentino Yuel, Roy O'Donovan.
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