Wanganui City's Jordan Joblin-Hall will want a big match down at Massey University this afternoon.
For both GJ Gardner Homes Wanganui Athletic and Big Orange Wanganui City, today is the first act in a bruising two-weekend morality play against the same opposition.
The fifth round of the Lotto Federation League will be followed by sudden death football next Saturday in the Chatham and Lotto Federation cups, so Athletic will get two Wembley Park matches against League leaders PN Marist, while City will also square off with Massey twice, starting today at the university grounds.
Athletic have experienced a significant swing in fortunes after they defeated New Plymouth Rangers 3-1 in the preliminary Chatham round and then hammered Massey 6-0 in League play three days later.
Coach Jason King's initial plan to have a light training week due to the added strain proved unnecessary, given everyone pulled up well from the Massey match, so Tuesday and Thursday this week were fairly close to the regular strong hit out.
"The same result is required from both of them [games]," said King.
"If we want to prove we're title contenders, we have to get the victory.
"The boys are positive and they're really up for the game."
Defender Peter Czerwonka is away on family business, but Athletic will be getting Jake Simcox back after his red card suspension.
Quinn Mailman is coming off a hat trick against Massey to move himself into the Golden Boot equation, with his four goals tying Marist's Lee Rufer for fourth place.
"Quinn has his own expectations," King said when asked if the Mailman can deliver again.
"It'd be good to see the likes of Ryan [Holden] putting them away."
Undefeated Marist have been the form team after they welcomed promoted Hokowhitu to the League with a 7-2 canning, were surprisingly held to a 2-2 draw by Massey, then accounted for North End 4-1 and the Red Sox 1-0 last Saturday.
However, coach Shane Rufer must now navigate a tough month of true away games, as his team could just about camp at Wembley with the two Athletic games, then Wanganui City, followed by the long hike to New Plymouth to face the Rangers.
While Rufer's son Lee is the side's top scorer, the coach is also hoping his New Caledonian striker Jean-Marie Hmaloko can make the trip after missing last weekend.
Having depth in the Palmerston North power club, Rufer may consider some chopping and changing of his squad between the league and cup matches, but King doesn't have the roster, or in fact the temperament, to do the same.
The strongest Athletic squad possible will front every week and go for the 'W', he said.
"Shane's an experienced coach, been doing this at plenty of good levels, he should know what goes into these road trips.
"I'm not actually that bothered, whatever he wants to put out we'll fight.
"He could do that with any game, it depends if his focus is getting back into Central League or progressing in the Chatham Cup."
Working alongside King as they set up for the start of the Wanganui football's 'First Kids' children's programme yesterday, City's coach Kelvin Francis has had two sessions to address what went wrong in the 6-3 loss to Hokowhitu when five unanswered goals were leaked in the second half.
"It's pretty obvious, to be honest," he said.
"Some new fellas in the backline didn't understand quickly and got caught out.
"They out-thought us and moved the ball better than we did."
As is his custom, Francis organised a sit down on Tuesday to ask the team what they thought went wrong, expecting honest answers because he already knew himself, having watched the recorded game footage.
"I don't want to pull people out and say 'it's your fault'.
"The more experienced guys have to speak up and see what's going on."
The team will miss Kyle Graham-Luke, who will be a travelling spectator due to his achilles injury, and need to make sure they get good service to Anthony Bell, who was leading the Golden Boot standings with five, until Hokowhitu's Nick Carrick shot passed him and up to seven goals during the comeback last weekend.
Under coach Donald Piper, Massey could have a stronger team than faced Athletic, now all the students are back from the holidays, with Francis not knowing much about them other than Tesco Grunwald being up the front – yet another former City lad who jumped the fence.
"Coming after a 6-3 lesson, we need to worry about our own," Francis said.
All matches start at 2.45pm.
In other Central League fixtures this weekend, GJ Gardner Homes Wanganui Athletic Reserves have a home game against DFC at 12.30pm, while tomorrow in the GR Engineering Women's Federation League, Football Whanganui will host New Plymouth Girls High at 1pm.