Newcastle Jets coach Craig Deans insists his team has a point to prove in Sunday's W League trial against Sydney FC in Wagga.
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The Jets will make the seven-hour journey via bus to Wagga on Saturday in preparation to take on the reigning W League champions at Equex Centre.
While Sydney FC's roster features a number of Matildas and international marquee results, Newcastle boast a predominantly all-local squad with most of their players coming through the club's academy.
Deans knows the Jets aren't given much hope, on Sunday, or in the upcoming season but for him it is all about his team earning respect.
"I think everybody that plays sport at a competitive level wants to win every time they play and we're obviously no different," Deans said.
"I would imagine most people would have us as coming last in the competition because we haven't signed any international players and we're not going to. We haven't signed any Matildas and we're not going to.
"We've gone down the path of promoting and producing our own players through our academy. We've got a full girls academy within the club and we want to make sure that we use that and give those girls an opportunity to represent their home town.
"For me, the scoreline (on Sunday) is important because we want to earn respect. We don't want people to judge us this early in the season. We'd like to put in a good performance, get a good result, one way or the other, and start earning that little bit of respect that we're not getting at the moment, which is fine, I understand people's reasons for it.
"When we play Sydney FC, Melbourne City and the big clubs like that we've definitely got a point to prove and we want to make sure that if we don't win the game that they know they've had a very difficult game in the process."
Newcastle's all-time leading goalscorer Tara Andrews will play on Sunday, as well as Hannah Brewer and Gema Simon, who have both represented Australia in the past.
New recruit Nicki Flannery, an attacking player, will also line-up after crossing from Canberra United.
"Obviously we don't have a team of superstars or a superstar within the team, we just have a good solid group who get on well together, they've grown up together a lot of them and we just want to make sure that we make Newcastle proud," he said.
Newcastle will also bring up some girls from their academy as replacements for a couple of injured players to give them a taste of W League action.
This will be the Jets' main pre-season trial ahead of the start of the season proper next month.
"This is definitely the one we knew we would get a real good indication of where we're at," he said.
"This is as close to a W-League game as we're going to get. This is the one we've put most of our emphasis on throughout the pre-season so far.
"We're going to have to work super hard every game that we play to get something out of every game. We're all aware of that and we don't want to crack like an egg under pressure at some point in time because we're not ready for what's coming.
"We know we've got a lot of work to do, we know we're going to have to work really hard. All I want to get out of it really is for the girls to get a good understanding of where they're at and where they've got to improve."
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