THE Central Coast Mariners have set their sights on the summit of the Hyundai A-League and today head for the Victorian capital with an unchanged line-up that is primed for Friday's top-of-the-table clash against the Melbourne Victory at Telstra Dome.
Positively for the visitors, each of the 15 squad members that secured the yellow and navy a precious 3-nil triumph over Adelaide United at Bluetongue Stadium last Saturday is again available for selection.
Included amongst the Mariners travelling party will be Qantas Socceroo Mile Jedinak, who will arrive in Melbourne on match day following his involvement in Australias 1-nil FIFA World Cup qualification triumph over Bahrain in Manama earlier this morning.
As potential cover for Jedinak, fellow midfielder Andre Gumprecht has been drafted into the Mariners line-up after completing two matches in the National Youth League.
While Gumprecht has returned to full fitness, the Mariners are still without Andrew Clark, Ahmad Elrich, Dean Heffernan, Paul O'Grady and Greg Owens, though each have returned to varying intensities of training in recent weeks, with all but Elrich potentially set to figure in selection calculations by the end of the month.
"Last Saturday was a great morale booster going into Friday night the top two teams to open the round up and it'll be a big crowd at the Telstra Dome and the boys have been buzzing this week at training," Mariners football manager Lawrie McKinna said.
"We love going down to Melbourne, weve had some great results down there, some great games down there the 3-3 draw comes to mind, our 0-0 draw down there last year was still a great game.
"They're always big occasions and generally we do well and the 2-2 draw up here earlier in the season still gives me nightmares, because that's a game that we should have won, even when they had 11 men on the park, we were doing pretty well against them.
"They're at full strength, whereas for us, hopefully Jedinak is back from overseas to take part, but whatever team we put on the park will be up for the game on Friday."
Friday's match up between the Mariners and the Victory marks the 13th meeting between the two clubs in all competitions.
In total, the Mariners have posted five wins over the Victory, with Melbourne responding with four triumphs in addition to three draws.
The Telstra Dome, the venue for Friday's match, is the only Hyundai A-League venue where the Mariners have yet to record a Hyundai A-League win.
"Melbourne are a big threat, they had a great result in Queensland a fortnight ago, they're strong at the back and can score goals from all over the park, it's going to be hard, but going into these games you have to back yourself," McKinna said.
"We're not going to be over confident, because we never are, we know it's going to be a hard game and we're going to have to be on top of ours to get anything out of it."
Central Coast Mariners Squad
2. Andre Gumprecht, 4. Pedj Bojic, 5. Bradley Porter, 6. David DApuzzo, 7. John Hutchinson, 9. Nik Mrdja, 10. Adrian Caceres, 11. Dylan Macallister, 16. Nigel Boogaard, 17. Matthew Osman, 18. Alex Wilkinson, 19. Matt Simon, 20. Danny Vukovic (gk), 22. Sasho Petrovski, 23. Mile Jedinak, 30. Andrew Redmayne (gk) *one to be omitted
* Ben Coonan is media manager for the Central Coast Mariners.
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