For the first time in the club’s history Central Coast coach Lawrie McKinna will have a full squad to pick from when the Mariners continue their Asian Champions League assault next month.
In four years McKinna has never had the luxury of picking from a full squad. But that will all change when the Mariners tackle Japanese heavyweights Kawasaki at Bluetongue Stadium in Gosford on April 8.
Several key players are now back in full training and jostling for places in McKinna’s starting side.
Veteran midfielder Andre Gumprecht missed the club’s first two Champions League matches but is now fully recovered from a calf injury picked up in training.
“That’s a great position to be in,” McKinna said.
“Since we started we’ve had our fair share of injuries but at the moment things are going very well on that front.”
“It’s great to be playing in this competition and having a full squad to pick from is very important. It gives us a lot of options.”
After two draws in their first two matches the Mariners know a win against Kawasaki will go a long way to securing the club a place in the competition’s knockout stages.
It is a crunch match. Victory and the team is sitting pretty but defeat at home would make the club-s mission of advancing to the competition’s next stage extremely tough.
“So far our performances have been good,” McKinna said.
“It was good to get off to a solid start at home against Pohang and we probably should have beaten Tianjin in China. It proves we can perform at this level. Now we need to improve and get a positive result at home.”
The Mariners will take on NSW Premier League club Leichhardt in Sydney on Tuesday night with McKinna expected to give several fringe players a run.
