The powerful forward got off to a cracking start for the Newcastle outfit, netting five goals in six games but has since hit a barren patch.

One of those goals was against the Mariners in round three when the Jets snatched a 2-1 victory off the back of some contentious refereeing decisions.

The Gosford club will be out to avenge the loss and take out the F3 derby honours when they head back to Hunter Stadium on Saturday.

“Obviously every team’s got a couple of players you’ve got to be careful of, Heskey being one of them,” Montgomery said.

“He’s always going to score goals. He may not be prolific but if you put a ball in the box he’s going to score and I think Newcastle did that well early on in the season.

“Other teams are now working on trying to stop the ball going into the box and obviously that may be the reason why he’s not scored as many as he did early on.”

The Mariners head to Newcastle top of the league ladder after Montgomery scored his first A-League goal and the match winner against Adelaide United last weekend.

The former Sheffield United player is expecting an “explosive atmosphere” for the derby rematch but said the Mariners will head into the clash confident of getting all three points.

“I think anyone that watched the (earlier derby) and saw the aftermath - there were a lot of bad decisions that went against us that game,” he said.

“I felt we should have got the three points but that’s football and you don’t always get the decisions that you should do and that you want.

“But that game’s gone. We went on a great run after losing that game and we’ll carry on, look forward to the game on Saturday and go into it full of confidence.

“Obviously being a derby adds a bit more spice. Sometimes, especially in England, derbies can go either way – whether you’re in good form or bad form it tends to go out the window and it’s whose the most passionate on the day.

“(But) we’ve been picking up good results, especially the last two games when we come from behind against Brisbane and again against Adelaide. So even if we go behind we know we’ve got the ability to win games.”

Coming up to nearly three months in Australia, and leading into his first “sunny Christmas” with the family, the 31-year-old is pleased with how easy the transition had been on and off the park.

Most of that he puts down to a string of impressive results – the Mariners are on a six game unbeaten run - and the strong team spirit in the squad.

Now he has urged fans to do their bit and turn out in big numbers for the reigning Premiers’ next home game against Melbourne Heart on December 14.

The midfielder pointed to the bumper 15,686 crowd at Bluetongue as a key factor in their 7-2 demolition of Alessandro Del Piero’s Sky Blues back in round 5.

In contrast, last weekend’s top of the table clash drew just 6,800.

“It’s only a smallish club compared to some of the other clubs in the A-League – we’ve got fantastic support – (but) we don’t get massive crowds and sometimes that can be a negative,” he said.

“We probably had our biggest crowd of the season against Sydney and we managed to score seven goals.

“Sometimes the more fans that you get at home, the better the atmosphere is and the better the games are. Sometimes when you don’t have a full house it’s down to the players to get atmosphere going inside the stadium.

“The hardcore fans that come week in week out are fantastic and I think the likes of the Sydney game showed that we can fill the stadium pretty well.

“There’s a long way to go but we’ve been playing some good football and I’m sure it’s good to watch.”

The Mariners’ faithful will have extra incentive to head down to Bluetongue for the Heart clash with former long-term skipper Alex Wilkinson making an appearance.

The central defender is on a break from K-League outfit Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors and will receive a special presentation to acknowledge his seven seasons with the Gosford outfit.

Wilkinson left for Korea in the off-season and the club was keen to give fans the opportunity to show their appreciation for his years of service.