NORTHERN Jets coach Jack Harper wants to see his group play with more pride in the guernsey ahead of what shapes as a big day for the club.
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The Jets will celebrate 20-years as a merged identity when they host reigning premiers The Rock-Yerong Creek to Ariah Park Sportsground on Saturday.
The home team will have a couple of points to prove after a disappointing 48-point loss to Marrar last Saturday. They will also want to prove they are better than the 67-point defeat they copped from the Magpies in round one.
Harper expects a strong response on Saturday.
"It shapes up to be a really big game, which it always is against The Rock," Harper said.
"Us as a playing group have a lot to answer for in the way we went about this weekend and the last time we played The Rock.
"There's a bit of pressure on to really perform and show that we're wearing the guernsey with a bit of pride and trying to do everything the right way and go about it the right way and 100 per cent.
"That side of things makes it a really big game for us but then off-field, we've got our 20-year celebration so it's a massive day for the club and I think the boys will be really disappointed in how we played this week just gone and are probably itching at the bit to have a red hot crack and give it our all in front of the home crowd."
The Jets will welcome back key position player Brad McKinnon from an overseas trip. Nate Doyle should also be right to return from illness.
Key forward Adam Flagg is closing in on a return from a knee injury and is an outside chance of lining up on Saturday. Max Tidd (overseas) is another week away.
Young gun Harry Roscarel has played his last game for the club this season after being cleared to his home club Ungarie in the Northern Riverina League.
While Sam Fisher is also unlikely to play again this year after the heavy concussion he suffered earlier in the year against TRYC.
The Jets have dropped to sixth spot on the Farrer League ladder, sitting a game plus percentage behind fifth-placed Temora.
Harper understands the situation and urgency required.
"Absolutely. The reality is you've got to go into every game thinking you can win and playing a brand of footy that can win you the game," he said.
"If you go in too defensive-minded or negatively-minded then you just don't give yourself a chance.
"Obviously the idea is we're going into this weekend to win and get the four points, that's going to be the same for every game moving into finals now.
"It's obviously really tight for finals spots, we believe we can still get there, we know we can win a couple of games in the backend of the year that we lost in the first half of the season, then maybe knock another couple of teams off, that would be fantastic.
"That's basically how our approach is going to be for the rest of the year. We've got no breaks left, we've got eight games in a row to finish things off so it's all systems go."
Harper knows the Jets must be better than what they showed against the Bombers last Saturday.
"As a whole, really disappointed with the effort. To give Marrar a four-goal jump in the first quarter means we're always starting behind the eightball and playing catch up footy," he said.
"In the second and third quarters, for us to not really show much of a response to the areas of the game we knew we needed to improve on, that was just really frustrating from my point of view and the guys were gutted at the end of the game as well.
"They knew that we didn't perform and there weren't many guys that came away with a pass mark, to be honest. We were pretty disappointed and frustrated by our performance in general.
"It was just one of those days where nothing really went right for us and you look at the scoreboard and see our 4.11 to their 13.5, we were only three scoring shots below theirs.
"As disappointing as it was, the scoreboard reflects we might have had a chance to be a lot better than we were."
