Australia NewsCulina Eyes Home Booster |
BRANKO Culina is hoping successive home games can inject confidence into his Newcastle Jets side as they look to haul themselves from the A-League depths.
The Jets crashed 3-0 to Wellington Phoenix in midweek and will look to bounce back against North Queensland Fury on Sunday.
"We've put the Wellington performance behind us," said Culina. It's best described as an ordinary game, probably the worst game that we've played this year overall. Having said that, we still had some opportunities at critical moments in the first-half where, had we taken them, things could have been totally different."
The Jets will take on Phoenix once again on Sunday November 22, this time on home soil, and Culina believes that a midseason revival is within reach for his side.
"The team is probably two wins short of being a very good team, if that makes sense, because we are a team that relies very much on confidence and if the results are not there then the confidence is not quite there. I think you would certainly see a different team if we won the next two home games," he said.
"Because we play the games at home, I think it's a genuine expectation that we can do it. In all due respect to the opposition, it's the type of opposition that we can and should beat. I think this is the first time that we've been in this situation that we're in now and hopefully we can take advantage."
Standing in the way of this, of course, is Fury marquee player, and former Liverpool striker, Robbie Fowler. The marksman has been impressive throughout his stint with the Townsville-based club, leading by example and netting eight goals as Fury have risen from bottom of the table to be genuine top six contenders.
Culina has naturally earmarked Fowler as the man to watch, and with little surprise, with the Queenslanders coming to Newcastle on the back of two successive victories.
"Those kinds of players, you think you've got them right and sorted out for 89 minutes and then they pop up and score a spectacular goal. I was at the game at the Gold Coast last week when Fowler scored those two goals, and the first one was out of nothing, pretty much," he added.
A boost for the home side is the return of Adam D'Apuzzo from suspension this Sunday, while Fabio Vignaroli looks likely to return from a calf injury, and young gun Sean Rooney has come back to team training after suffering an illness for the past week.
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