McKinna has selected a preliminary squad of 20 players for tomorrow’s fixture, the first match of the new Hyundai A-League season.

Injured defender Paul O’Grady and new recruit Ian McAndrew, who is still short of fitness having only recently joined his hometown club, are the only confirmed absentees from one of the most highly anticipated derbies ever between the two inaugural A-League Grand Finalists.

Such dilemmas in squad selection have been virtually non-existent for McKinna over the past two seasons.

Ahead of a pontentially blockbuster game, the Mariners are confident they're as strong as they have ever been.

"We’ve got everybody fit apart from Paul O’Grady, and we’ve never had a squad like that to pick from," said McKinna.

"Three of the boys, Greg Owens, Andrew Clark and Tony Vidmar are probably just a little bit underdone for match fitness.

"They’ve had their little injuries that they’re coming back from – they’re fit and available but probably just not sharp enough."

He added: "It’s a good problem to have, we’ve never really had this problem in two years.

"Our pre-season was good, it was disappointing against Perth and Queensland, but we came back against New Caledonia.

"And the boys have freshened up last week and this week, and will be raring to go on Friday night – we’ll do the Coast proud."

Friday’s match will be the Mariners’ eleventh against Sydney FC in all competitions.

So far the Mariners have recorded three wins, two draws and five losses – the greatest amount of defeats they have recorded against any A-League opposition in their short history.

Mariners midfielder Andre Gumprecht is one to have benefited from previous matches against Sydney FC, having scored half of his four Central Coast goals in matches against the Mariners’ southern rivals.

Gumprecht is one of twelve starters from the inaugural Grand Final that is eligible to play for their respective club this Friday – 537 days since that historic encounter at the Sydney Football Stadium.

Aside from Gumprecht, current Mariners squad members Damien Brown, Andrew Clark, Dean Heffernan, Tom Pondeljak, Danny Vukovic and Alex Wilkinson were members of the Central Coast’s starting eleven on 5 March, 2006, while for Sydney FC, Clint Bolton, Steve Corica, Terry McFlynn, Mark Rudan and Jacob Timpano are survivors.

"I think in the past, over the last two years, Sydney been struggling at various points of the season," said McKinna.

"But when we go down the road and it’s the derby, form goes out the window.

"I’m expecting a very tough game, they’ve got a lot of experienced players – Tony Popovic back, Mark Rudan at the back, they’ve got Milligan who is a current Socceroo, Clint Bolton in goals – they’ve got experience all over the park.

"We’ll need to be at the top of our game to get a result."

He added: "I got up on Saturday morning and got all excited realising that there was only six days to go until we started and I got the butterflies in my stomach.

"We’ve been training for months, pre-season is a long time in Australia and the real football starts on Friday night.

"There’ll be a good crowd with hopefully a few thousand Mariners supporters and hopefully we can keep the Sydney crowd very quiet.

"We’re opening the season, which is a great chance to showcase our club with how we’ve recruited and how we’ve built the team and it’d be great to get off to a good start."

Central Coast Mariners Squad

1. Matthew Trott (gk), 2. Matt Simon, 5. Bradley Porter, 6. Andre Gumprecht, 7. John Hutchinson, 8. Dean Heffernan, 9. Nik Mrdja, 10. Tom Pondeljak, 11. Damien Brown, 12. Greg Owens, 13. Tony Vidmar, 15. Andrew Clark, 16. Nigel Boogaard, 17. Matthew Osman, 18. Alex Wilkinson, 19. Adam Kwasnik, 20. Danny Vukovic (gk), 22. Sasho Petrovski, 23. Mile Jedinak, 30. Andrew Redmayne (gk) *five to be omitted