Lambton Jaffas look to hit back against Edgeworth in NPL

The Eagles beat Jaffas 3-1 in an epic extra-time Australia Cup match on Saturday night at Jack McLaughlan Oval and now prepare to face them at Edden Oval in the league.

Edgeworth overcame a late Jaffas goal, then a double penalty miss in the 90^th minute, to equalise 1-1 deep into stoppage time with an own goal and send the game to extra-time. They travel to Olympic in the next round on June 21.

The round 15 NPL game on Saturday is another vital one for both teams. The rivals sit on 24 points with Maitland and Olympic, behind Charlestown (31), Weston (28) and Magic (27) in the stacked battle for silverware.

Jaffas coach David Tanchevski, who missed the cup game because of illness, hopes to welcome back Ben Hay, Sakeel Balfour Brown, Finn Todhunter, Charlie Kelly, Kaleb Cox and Michael Finlayson on Saturday. All were cup-tied or away, except for Todhunter, who is returning from a foot problem.

"We're looking forward to getting some boys back this week, which obviously makes a difference," Tanchevski said.

"We sort of knew we had to win it in the 90 minutes because we were pretty narrow off the bench. We had two guys who hadn't played a minute of first grade all year, so we were pretty light on.

"Once it went to extra-time and we had to empty our bench it was always going to be tough for those guys who hadn't played much or any first grade."

"To concede with pretty much the last kick [of regulation time] was pretty disappointing, and an own goal, but my assistant coach Paul Gomez and Piddo [player Josh Piddington], they were pretty proud of the effort.

"They think we didn't play as well as we can, so we'll see how we turn up this week with a few extra boys to come in, some fresh legs. We'll have a lot more depth off the bench."

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