Words: Nick Crockford
Image: Moreton Bay United

Moreton Bay United’s fast-finish to the home-and-away season is no surprise to coach Terry Kirkham - it was part of the plan.

Jets are one of the NPL Queensland’s form teams, currently sitting in fourth place after scoring 12 goals in three successive victories in addition to keeping two clean sheets.

That has left the Wolter Park outfit in to the middle of a scramble for top four finish – with seven clubs still a mathematical chance of qualifying for the NPL Queensland Finals.

This weekend Jets will look to shore up their claims with a tough away trip to Palm Beach Sharks tomorrow night before they host Brisbane Strikers Saturday week in a blockbuster likely to decide the finals fate of both teams.

Kirkham acknowledged the challenge ahead of his side as they seek to secure their first NPL Queensland Finals berth.

“I didn’t think we’d be sitting on top of the league with five weeks to go but I thought we’d be around it,” he explained.

“I said in January we were going to go out to score a lot of goals, but might concede a lot of goals. That’s happened.”

“To a degree, we’ve been putting jigsaws together all year. We started at the front and worked our way back.

“The last four months we’ve been working to unify the defence. We’ve brought new keeper (Luke Borean) in, Jordan Farina went back to centre half, where he’d never played before. Now results are starting to pay off at the business end of season.”

“We’ve still got to get the business done in the last two weeks against two big clubs. But the boys are totally focused. They can see a result, see where they are and the possibility of being in the top four.”

Kirkham is not expecting any favours from Sharks, despite their Westfield FFA Cup exploits and comfortable nine-point cushion at the top of the NPL Queensland standings.

“They’re going to keep going,” he said, “They have a lot of depth and unity and they’ve bought some very good players in recently.

“Karl Dodd is a handy pick up for any side. We’d have loved to have Doddsy here. If we had him with six-to-eight weeks left we might have been able to go on a run as well.”

Kirkham also acknowledged the notorious Mallawa Complex surface will play its part in the match.

“From all reports the pitch down there is not like what we’re playing on up here. I’ve been told it’s very dry and bumpy, if it’s not raining,” he said.

“They’ll be very happy for us to have everything in the air whereas we’ll want everything down on the deck. Hopefully the pitch will be suited to us.”

Jets travel with renewed competition for places, having Matthew Zappone and Jared Austen back from overseas trips and Jordan Farina from suspension. But a change of tactics has also helped.

“We went for four or five weeks period everyone had studied us quite well, solidified their back four against our two strikers and attacking midfielder and we were not getting a lot of space,” said Kirkham.

“Now we’ve got a front three which is opening things up and the opposition is having to change tactics. It’s been a good move for us.”

“I thought last weekend, I thought our second half against SW Queensland Thunder was very good, probably our best all year.”

“Having said that there’s no other team going to sit back and allow us that space and time. This weekend will be a totally different ball game,” he concluded.

Jets play Palm Beach this Saturday at Mallawa Complex with kick-off scheduled for 5pm.