The New Zealanders have been on the front foot in their hunt for attacking talent for most of the off-season and despite playing Chinese opposition, were keen to try their hand against competition more to their level.

“It is great that we are playing a high-quality A-League side that was in the A-League Grand Final last season and just missed out,” Merrick said.

“They are always very competitive and that is what we need to discover our strengths and weaknesses so we can work on them in the rest of pre-season.

“We will be looking to cement our attacking play after a good display in Beijing." 

Merrick added: “We don’t have Roy Krishna at the moment but Hamish Watson did well in Beijing, scoring our first goal and we have Kosta Barbarouses, who was outstanding last week, up front. 

“Gui Finkler was also outstanding in the No 10 position, while Roly Bonevacia and Michael McGlinchey were always attacking."

“Against Beijng we conceded inside three minutes and we have been working on that side of our game in training here in Sydney.”

Happy with the way his attacking line-up is looking, Merrick has now turned his attention to luring a quality European defender as well as players to replace those who had left post-season.

“With that in mind our next focus is finding a Manny Muscat type player who can play right back, a back-up striker to replace Blake Powell and a midfielder to replace Albert Riera.

“We have time to do that but we will have no visa spots available so it will be a case of looking around Australia and New Zealand.

“Myself, Chris (Greenacre) and Des (Buckingham) went to a local game last night and the standard in the New South Wales Premier League is quite high.”