Kruse suffered a pulled hamstring in the 2-1 loss to Melbourne Victory last Saturday and was forced to withdraw from the Olyroos camp earlier this week.

The youngster trained for the first time today and Farina was encouraged by the amount of work he was able to get through. With fellow striker Reinaldo suspended for the Sydney battle, the Roar boss is likely to leave the decision on Kruse until the eleventh hour.

“Robbie [Kruse] looked promising this morning in terms of what he did. He didn’t feel too much and he’s got the day off tomorrow, so we’ll see how he is on Friday and Saturday.

“He’s in a lot better shape and 24 hours is a long time, so he’s better than we expected, which is encouraging,” Farina said.

Korean defender Hyuk-Su Seo will definitely miss the game with a calf strain, as will utility Stuart McLaren who is yet to recover from his ankle sprain, but midfield enforcer Danny Tiatto is almost certain to start after recent treatment on his back and hamstring problems.

Also back in contention is winger Michael Zullo who wasn’t risked against Melbourne, with both Simon Lynch and Zoran Petrevski in the coach’s thoughts as a possible replacement for Reinaldo.

“Danny’s come up really well from last week so he’s looking alright,” said Farina.

“There are some players, like Simon Lynch, who haven’t had a lot of game time. Zoran [Petrevski] hasn’t had game time and Michael Zullo has missed the last six weeks, so it’d be unrealistic to think that they would last 90 minutes if they did start the game.

“We have to consider whether it would be better for them to have 20 minutes off the bench and there are a number of players in that boat at the moment, but at least we have some options,” he added.

Sydney FC are yet to lose a game away from home this season and Farina paid tribute to John Kosmina’s contribution to the form reversal that has seen Sydney emerge as the in-form side of the Hyundai A-League just at the right time.

“Kossie definitely has something to do with Sydney’s form; they’re on a good run and have won their last three games away from home, albeit two of them against ten men.

“They’ve turned it around and they’re probably the form team in the league at the moment, but Sydney have always been a good side with good players. It just makes Sunday even more interesting.”

In the round 5 encounter between the two sides Farina was critical of a number of late tackles during the early part of the match, saying he felt some of his players had been targeted for some ‘special treatment’.

He told local media this morning that he’s not expecting the same type of attention this time around and is looking forward to an open, attacking game for the fans.

“The last game (round 14) was alright, but the first game there certainly were some hefty challenges and I don’t go back on my words there. It was 100% true and they knew it.

“But I thought the last game was a good contest, very even, a bit of an arm wrestle but fair and hard. As I said, they’ve got good players, we’ve got good players – we’re probably a bit more under-strength than them, but I’ve got confidence that the boys will go out there and give it their all.

“If there’s an early goal I think it’ll be very open but we’re certainly going out to try and win the game. Sometimes in football when you get a game that’s built up it turns out to be not so great, and vice-versa. Hopefully this one will live up to its billing but really I don’t care how we win, as long as we win,” said the Roar Coach.

With yellow cards being wiped before the start of the Hyundai A-League Finals Series, but suspensions carrying through, Roar have several players walking a suspension tightrope in the last two fixtures. Michael Zullo, Marcinho, Hyuk-Su Seo, Ben Griffin and Stuart McLaren all have one more yellow card to go before they are forced to sit out a game.