Newcastle Jets interim head coach Clayton Zane is hopeful the Jets can build on their 1-0 win over Brisbane Roar on Sunday
Hunter Ports Newcastle Jets interim head coach Clayton Zane is hopeful the Jets can build on their 1-0 win over competition front-runners Brisbane Roar at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday.
Adam Taggart’s second-half penalty completed a hat-trick of wins for the Jets over Brisbane this season.
The backs-to-the-wall performance brought to an end a run of seven matches without a win for Newcastle.
The last time they managed gained all three points was at the same venue, against the same opponents back in December.
It was also Zane’s first win since taking over as interim head coach.
“It’s obviously good to get that one out of the way and not look at that stat any more over the past seven games,” he said.
“But more importantly I try and look at it from the players’ point of view, and it’s a big one for their belief and hopefully they can really take a big step forward now and start to believe that the (top) six is a definite possibility rather than one that seemed a distant hope a week ago.”
The 36-year-old coach said there was little talk during the week of a Jets hoodoo over Brisbane, despite his side’s impressive record against the competition’s current benchmark team.
We didn’t talk too much about it in the build up,” Zane said.
“Certain players, obviously, have been involved in the fixture in recent years and you could tell today that they were up for it, i.e. Ruben Zadkovich.
“But we tried not to make it a big point.
“Probably the big point for us was that we knew Brisbane were going to come out all guns blazing in the hope that they could rectify the past two results.
“But for us, we’ve been sticking to the game plan for the last couple of weeks and some things have worked, other things haven’t, and I think it was only a matter of time before it was a more consistent performance.
“I tried to make sure that the players had belief that we could actually get the ball down and play on the transition and they did that quite well tonight.
“It was always going to be a bit of a counter-attacking performance and I think you’ll find the other nine teams that come up here will probably have a similar approach.”
The Newcastle Jets return home to Hunter Stadium to face Sydney FC on Saturday. Kick-off is at 5.30pm.
Newcastle Jets v Sydney FC
Saturday, February 22
Hunter Stadium
Kick-off 5.30pm
Tickets available from PROticket.
