After six straight losses, five of which were at home, the Spitfires will be looking to match it with one of the competition front-runners, Wests, in Canberra on Saturday.

Co-coach Jeremy Payne was happy with the way his side played against Goulburn last weekend and wants them to build on it.

“We’ve played Wests before and we know they’re a great side that’s quick and strong,” Payne said.

“We want to be able to match them.

“I’m not too concerned by the end score or the end result, I just want to make sure we’re building on what we’re trying to teach these guys.

“They’re going to be a finals team for sure, they’ve got a lot of good players and can score a big amount of goals very quickly.

“Defensively, we’ve got to be tight.

“We’ve been having five to 10-minute lapses through games where teams have been able to convert and the game can turn that quickly.

“We really want to concentrate on staying focused for the full 70 minutes.”

Charley Wallace, Sam Quick and Jeremy Maggs all return, while Matt Bardy will put his hamstring to the test after also missing last weekend.

“He’s (Bardy) managing it at the minute, hopefully he’ll be right and he can push out a few more games with us without having any mishaps,” Payne said.

Andrew Monte is a key absence with work commitments.

Meanwhile, in the women’s competition, Spitfires coach Jerry Sutherland has asked for strong performances from his experienced players against a well-balanced Centrals side at Albury Hockey Centre, also on Saturday.

“I’m expecting a lot quicker game, I think it’s going to be physical too with a few older ones in their team,” Sutherland said.

“We need our older ones to match that and hopefully the younger girls will run off that.

“It’s going to be similar to the ANU game, but they’re probably a bit better and they’re just above us on the ladder.

“We need a big game from (goalkeeper) Sam Campbell this week and we’ll see if we can hold them out.

“I’ll be happy with a draw, but a loss isn’t going to worry us too much, we just don’t want to get flogged, we want to be competitive.”

Teegan Gallagher and Jade Mann are back from illness, but Tess Palubiski has been ruled out and will be replaced by Ange McDonald.

Amazingly, it will be the side’s last game for three weeks, with a two double-headers to come in the second half of the season.

“The girls will go out hard this week and have a bit of a rest before they’re back into training in a couple of weeks time,” Sutherland said.

“It’s going to be hard to get back into it, but hopefully the girls will keep playing in the local comp.”

The men’s match is at 1.45pm at Canberra’s Watt Field, while the women’s match gets under way at 2pm at Albury Hockey Centre.