There is never a dull moment at the Hunter club with the current campaign starting with Gary van Egmond's departure, the messy Joel Griffiths saga and now a very public row with Newcastle Knights over money.

Injuries have also hit hard - Michael Bridges (torn quad) the latest to be ruled out, but Elrich is in a positive frame of mind and insists the players have all the necessary tools at their disposal to perform well.

"These things (the off field issues) don't matter," Elrich told au.fourfourtwo.com. "We've got our training facilities, great access to a gym, pool and we train on a pitch that's better than our actual playing surface, so we're not complaining.

"When the whole Joel Griffiths saga was going on we won four in a row. We've a great bunch of boys here."

Miron Bleiberg's glamour boys stand in the way on Saturday night and Elrich knows they are not invincible.

The  Jets were the ones to shatter Gold Coast United's dreams of an unbeaten season and Elrich is confident the Hunter outfit can also wreck the glamour club's finals ambitions on Saturday night.

Neither side goes into the Skilled Park clash in the best of form with Newcastle enduring a particularly woeful end to the regular season.

Such form sees many writing off their chances of lifting the toilet seat but Elrich is losing little sleep over such gloomy predictions. He's heard it all before and made a mockery of it.

"Everyone has written us off but that doesn't bother me," Elrich said. " It's a new slate, finals football. Gold Coast have been a bit down in form as well. It is a realistic goal (winning the title) and we'll go out and play each game as if it's our last.

"Gold Coast hadn't lost ahead of the first time we played them. I think they were $1.05 and we were out at $8 or something.

"The year we won it (the A-League championship) we started badly and everyone wrote us off. We had no chance after losing 2-0 to Central Coast Mariners in the semi-finals, played them again in the Grand Final and  Bridgey (Mark Bridge) scored the winner."

As for the current quest for the toilet seat, Elrich admits Sunday's injury to former Leeds United man Bridges could not have come at a worse time.

"Michael Bridges is going to be a big loss for us. He's brought a lot of experience and he's a good bloke off the pitch too," added Elrich.

"But we have Matt Thompson still and he's been great for us. Look, both teams have their problems but I'm sure whatever team Branko puts out this weekend will do a job for the club."