Alisha Bass is feeling more comfortable with every game.
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The 25-year-old returned to the W-League after an eight-season absence intent on cementing herself as a regular starter and is already proving a key player as Newcastle coach Ash Wilson rebuilds her midfield.
The former Australian youth player and holding midfielder has played every minute of all three of Newcastle's games.
Wilson has had to craft a completely new midfield after home-grown talent Clare Wheeler and Libby Copus-Brown joined Sydney and Western Sydney respectively and injury ruled out Paige Kingston-Hogg this campaign.
"Making that starting team was definitely a goal at the start of the year," Bass, who works in Newcastle as a debt counsellor, told the Newcastle Herald on Wednesday.
"So I've been really thankful and want to keep proving myself week in, week out because there's so much depth in the squad. You can just tell by the intensity at training that no one expects that their position is just granted.
"I want to continue to perform as best I can, to be making interceptions and tackles. Keeping those numbers up is a big goal of mine at the position that I'm in, and just continuing to contribute to attack as well."
Bass made one appearance in a debut W-League season with Sydney in 2011-12. She featured in four games the following season with Western Sydney before taking up an invitation to play for University of Wyoming in the United States college system.
"It's been really great to be back and definitely with every game I'm feeling better," Bass said. "I was a little nervous at first because it was hard to tell how much the standard had changed since I had been in the league those eights years ago.
"But from my time in the US I had a lot more game experience under my belt, so I was also confident in my ability that I could bring what I had gained there to the W-League and really compete among an amazing group of home-grown talent in Australia."
The Jets lost 2-1 to the Wanderers and Sydney before a 1-1 draw with Brisbane on Sunday at McDonald Jones Stadium.
They get another shot at Western Sydney at No.2 Sportsground on Saturday afternoon and a win would move the eighth-placed Jets ahead of the Wanderers, who are seventh with three points.
"We know, and Ash makes sure that we know, that it's important to be getting points and getting wins ... it is a short season in the W-League and you can't take multiple rounds to settle into it, so we know the stakes of this weekend," Bass said.
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