Injuries Could Decide Jets Blockbuster

Nine-goal striker Ryan Griffiths trained today after missing this week’s sessions due to a cork.

But late in the session the former Beijing Guoan star complained of soreness and headed to the ice baths.

Van Egmond played it down and didn’t reveal the other player under the injury cloud but he stressed his game plan would cover all selection eventualities

“We are having to look at a few players who aren’t 100% fit," he said. “Still it was a fairly nasty one he got on the muscle on the bone.

"He’s feeling that a little and we’ll see how he is tomorrow. We’ll just have to look at the fitness of a couple.”

The Jets boss added that he’d wait to see how Olyroos Ben Kantarovski and Jacob Pepper backed up after their mid-week exertions against Iraq before making a selection decision about the pair.

“But I’d suggest both players would be in the mix," he said. "And Labi  Haliti is another but it’s a little harder for him because Jeremy Brockie has been in and around.

"And Michael Bridges and Franny Jeffers have made such an impact off the bench, so it’s a little bit more difficult for Labinot, but you never know.”

Van Egmond worked hard today on his team pressing high up on the park.

It’s clearly a key part of their game plan to test out Roar’s defensive players’ technique under pressure, by trying to win the ball in good areas and play as much of the game in the opposition’s half.

“As far as the shape is concerned we’re starting to get a little bit more of an idea of what we feel will be more effective against Brisbane,” Van Egmond added.

“Pressing is something we keep on working on and we know that Brisbane is a very comfortable football team in regards to possession and controlling a game, so we obviously want to look to try disturb that and we went through a few scenarios today.

“And Roar pride themselves on being the fittest team in the league so we know whichever team they put out will be very handy.”

The Jets, in sixth, are desperate for at least a point to keep their finals dream alive while Brisbane have the top spot in their sights.

It’s an important game for both. Given that, asked whether he was happy with what he saw at Jets training the former AIS coach was cautious in his praise.

He added that when he took over the job at the start of the season there was a bit of confusion about playing styles.

“Now we seem to be more in tune with what we want to do each week, and that’s shown with the results," he said. “We always have self-belief in that we go out and try win every game.

“I’m reasonably happy but it’s always an on-going process. And as you can see from Tokyo FC in the ACL, there’s always room for improvement.”

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