With just 22 goals last campaign, the Mariners were the second-worse performing side in front of goal.

This season however, Lawrie McKinna has been boosted by the return of Nik Mrdja and the signing of Sasho Petrovski.

As a result, McKinna has adapted Kwasnik’s role which now sees the 24-year-old playing as a wide attacker and last weekend’s performance against Sydney FC proved it a success.

“I’m enjoying my role out wide,” he told au.fourfourtwo.com. “I like to run at players and with the ball out wide you get a better chance to do that.

“When you’re up front you’ve got your back to goal a lot of the time and it’s hard to create opportunities by yourself.

"With Nik and Sash we’ve got more firepower and I hope I can stay up there with the goal scorers.”

Kwasnik believes the trio can become one of the league’s most feared attack force.

“We feel confident that when we go forward we’ll make the most of our chances," he said.

"Last year we couldn’t really say that because we didn’t have an out-an-out two and we were a little bit all over the place.

“With Sash and Nik... they’re big target men and they can bring the likes of myself and Andre Gumprecht into the game.”

This weekend’s match against Wellington is tipped to be a big one, with both sides aiming to build momentum following the results of round one.

The Mariners have dissected Wellington’s game this week.

“We watched a bit of their game in a video session,” Kwasnik revealed. “They looked good.

"Melbourne were all over them for 75 minutes of the game, they ripped them apart in stages."

But he added: “When Wellington got their first goal and brought on Felipe it changed though. Felipe looks very lively. In the pre-season they were a bit underdone but they’ll be up for it tonight.

“We looked at their set plays in both attack and defence. They’ve got good players all over the park.

"Their front two Vaughan Coveney and Shane Smeltz are very good. Smeltz had his chances and they both work hard. They’ll be tough to break down.”