Our captain, Danny Vukovic, spoke to the media ahead of this weekend’s F3 Derby at Our Paradise.
Vukovic touched on the threats that Newcastle Jets possess, however he is confident that the side can kickstart our season with a win on home turf, after the fixture was reversed last week.
“It’s nice for us, we love playing at home in front of our home supporters,” he said.
“We’re pretty confident, playing at home in front of our home fans, we need to score the first goal and get that monkey off our back, get that first win and kickstart our season.”
“We have four home games in a row now, obviously we need wins and points on the board and tomorrow night is a good opportunity to do that.”
The 38-year-old shot stopper is positive about the hard work he has seen from those in front of him.
“The work rate is always there, we are always going to work hard, and we have a young team that is able to do that,” he said.
“We have created opportunities and I’d be more worried if we weren’t creating those opportunities, it’s now about putting it in the back of the net and not allowing [the opponents] to score goals.”
Our captain isn’t underestimating the Jets, believing they are ‘a different beast’ this season off the back of a tough 2022/23 campaign.
“Jets are a different beast this season, last season they probably didn’t have the best year of football, but they seem to be a much stronger side,” he said.
“We’re expecting a difficult game tomorrow but it’s a derby match, they say the form book goes out of the window.”
When asked about particular danger men from the opposition to keep an eye on, Vukovic said.
“I don’t like to single out anyone, I think when you start focussing on one person you probably forget others, but up front, they are scoring more goals than they were last season and they have some speed up there, so we have to be on our game and keep things nice and tight at the back.”
Finally, Vuka explained the importance of this fixture to him and the squad, and how much they want to get a result for the fans.
“We’re fired up and I’m sure our supporters are too.”
It means a lot; we don’t like the team from up north and I know the supporters don’t like each other either.
“It’s one for the supporters, I think, more than anything. We want to get one over on the rivals, there’s a trophy on the line as well which we hold so we want to hold on to that.”
Tickets are still available for one of the biggest games of our season, make sure you get yours here and come and get behind the boys at Our Paradise this Saturday.
