The Jets will take a 16-man squad over to New Zealand for their Week 12 game.
The Newcastle Jets will take a 16-man squad over to New Zealand for their Week 12 game to be played against Wellington Pheonix this Friday night at Westpac Stadium.
Before departing for their second trip to Wellington this season, Gary van Egmond announced his squad which included the inclusion of Nikolai Topor-Stanley, Michael Bridges, Ali Abbas and Jacob Pepper.
“Bridgey has been doing really well at training this week and after putting in the hard yards and he will get his opportunity on Friday night,” van Egmond said.
Captain Jobe Wheelhouse misses this weekend’s game due to suspension whilst Kasey Wehrman will be rested and Chris Payne omitted.
“With a six-day turnaround, obviously it is not adventitious for him to travel right now,” the coach explained.
“We have a very heavy workload coming up with the game on new years, followed by the Gold Coast game shortly after and we felt that this one was probably best for him to miss.”
Brazilian defender Tiago Calvano has been given the opportunity to lead the team out at Westpac Stadium on Friday.
“It was a fairly easy decision to make and Tiago really stands out and puts his hand up,” he added.
The Newcastle Jets squad to travel to Wellington is: 1, Ben Kennedy, 2. Taylor Regan, 4. Nikolai Topor-Stanley, 4. Tiago Calvano (c), 6. Ben Kantarovski, 8. Jeremy Brockie, 9. Michael Bridges, 10. Ruben Zadkovich, 11. Tarek Elrich, 13. Sung-Hwan Byun, 14. Labinot Haliti, 19. Matthew Nash, 22. Ali Abbas, 23. Ryan Griffiths, 24. Francis Jeffers, 25. Jacob Pepper.
