Coach James Coutts said the players were stung by the 4-1 loss to Moreland Zebras he labelled their ‘worst performance for the year’. 

“I think the boys will go out with something to prove,” he said.

“They were individually and collectively hurt by the performance they turned in last week.

“We believe in the players we’ve got, we’ve got some exciting prospects but we also know we need to get results at a senior level.” 

Eliminating unforced errors was at the top of Coutts’  list of things to improve.

“We feel we can compete with all the teams we’ve come up against so far, however sometimes we’re our own worst enemy,” he said.

“When you look at the amount of times we gave the ball away in the first half last week, we’re looking at 25 to 30 unforced errors in 45 minutes.

“We know that we’re going to have ups and downs, but if we play like that then we’re not going to get the results.” 

Some of the club’s young guns will have to step up once more to cover for a number of injured senior stars. 

The prognosis for Ryan Giles is better than expected with the defender avoiding surgery on his knee, but he’ll be out for two to three weeks.

Sean Pye is expected to return, but Melkie Woldemichael and Nick Russell both remain under an injury cloud.