Newcastle Jets head coach Gary van Egmond said he was pleased to see his side tested in their trial match on Wednesday night.
Hunter Ports Newcastle Jets head coach Gary van Egmond said he was pleased to see his side tested in their 2-1 win over the NBN State League Select at Adamstown Oval on Wednesday night.
The Jets had to come from behind to claim victory and van Egmond said he was pleased with the character his players showed to complete the task against a more than willing opposition.
“There was a lot more mobility from the NBN Select team because of the injection of the Jets youth team players coming into the side and they obviously wanted to put on the best display they could,” he explained.
“From our point of view I was really pleased with the game overall. Firstly for the fact that we were tested with a much closer game.
“We defended probably the best we have defended for the entire pre-season in regards to the pressing and people getting in contact with each other and that was really good to see.”
The Jets backed-up for Wednesday-s game after a tough conditioning session in warmer conditions on Tuesday and van Egmond said that for the most part, the players responded well to the extra workload.
“At the moment it-s about getting miles into their legs and putting them under pressure by doing certain things as far as training is concerned,” he explained.
“We need to keep on constantly challenging them which will obviously improve their mentality as well.”
Those Jets players who didn-t start Wednesday night-s fixture put in some extra work at a light training session at Ray Watt Oval on Thursday morning.
They were joined by new Brazilian recruit Bernardo Ribeiro, who practised with his new teammates for the first time.
“(Bernardo) is neat and tidy and he-s definitely got a point of difference,” van Egmond said.
“The stuff we did today was a lot more small-sided work so we-re keen to look at him on a bigger stage.”
The Jets wrap-up their current phase of pre-season training with trial matches against NSWPL side Rockdale City Suns as well as the Wellington Phoenix next week.
“That-s what we-ve looked to build towards during this six-week program. We started off with a little lesser opposition and we-re continuing to get that opposition stronger,” he said.
“We have a game against Rockdale and then obviously against Wellington and those matches will give us a better gauge of how we-re going.”
