Newcastle coach Gary van Egmond believes the Jets are one of five teams vying for fourth spot as the race for the Hyundai A-League finals hots up.
Newcastle registered a much-needed 4-2 win over Melbourne Victory last week to keep its slim semi-final hopes alive and is looking to score three more points in this Friday night’s Boxing Day match against the Central Coast Mariners to maintain its charge to the finals.
“I think it is always a close fought game when we play against the Central Coast,” he said. “The rivalry that we have being the derby as well, which puts a lot more emphasis on the fixture rather more than any other game we play.”
“If we win we will be four points behind them and you would suspect they will be in fourth place.”
“If you look at the table, Adelaide, Melbourne and Queensland are looking pretty good for the top four if you have a look at their run-ins and where they play and where they are situated with games in hands. So they are looking quite strong.”
“I think there is that fourth position that is going to be up for grabs for the remainder of the clubs so it is going to be a very interesting game and an interesting run home.”
Van Egmond said the confidence in the club is at its peak for this season and he is looking forward to the team fulfilling its potential in the final five matches of the season.
“The mood at training has been good and even though we have taken a lot of confidence from the way we have played there is nothing like taking confidence from a win and scoring a lot of goals,” he said.
“The players are on a high and really looking forward to this game.”
“It has been coming for a while and you need to create your own bit of luck and we certainly did that on the weekend through plenty of hard work particularly in the first half. It has been something that has been simmering underneath and eventually it came out and we put the chances away.”
“So I think this week’s game (against the Mariners) is going to be an entertaining game. They are definitely looking to reverse their form from last week and we are looking to build on the win that we had last week.”
