The Newcastle Jets return to action for the F3 Derby against arch-rivals Central Coast Mariners on Sunday 11 December with a 3 pm kick-off at Central Coast Stadium.
Whilst the A-League has taken a 4-week break during the FIFA World Cup, it has been business as usual for the Jets, playing friendlies against A-League opposition, maintaining peak fitness and developing their brand of possession football.
Newcastle Jets left-back James McGarry provided insights into the Jets training camp who are ready to ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ for the F3 derby.
“We spent some time up in Tamworth where we played Melbourne City, and a couple of practice games,” said McGarry.
“We’ve really been working hard over the last three or four weeks tactically and obviously to keep up the fitness for the A-League.”
“It’s been a great three weeks and yeah, we’re ready to rock ‘n’ roll.”
The A-League mini-break has been an opportunity for the Jets to reflect on their past performances and work on imposing their brand of football for longer periods.
“It’s been a time for us to reflect on the games that we’ve played,” said McGarry.
“Obviously we’ve had five of them, we’ve looked at the games at what we needed to do better and there are a few things.”
“We were happy with parts of the first five games that we played.”
“But it was putting in a full performance together that we weren’t quite happy with, we hadn’t really done that in the first five games.”
“We didn’t come away from a game going, we played 90 minutes of Jets football.”
McGarry echoed the philosophy of possession football that Coach Arthur Papas has instilled in the squad.
“We’ve been going back to the basics, finding what Jets football is all about, we’re a ball-positioned-based team, we want to have the ball.”
“We’ve been working on that, really hard and we’ve been able to implement that into the practice games that we’ve had.”
“So, we’re really happy and looking forward to this weekend.”
“That’s what we expect of ourselves and as a club and we know that’s what the fans want.”
“We’re going out there to show the fans what we’ve been doing over the last four weeks and show that we’re keen to get Jets football back in town,” chanted McGarry.
By David Wigley.
