Lachlan Avil 
Clayton Taylor warming up for Newcastle Jets. Photo: Texi Smith
The Newcastle Jets have hammered Western United 4-1 in the Australia Cup play off in Darwin on Wednesday, as they begin life without star striker Apostolos Stamatelopoulos.
Most fans will tell you that pre-season games and xG are the two things in football that you should not read too much into.
But however accurate that assertion may or not be, an amalgamation of both categories gave us a couple of way-too-early assumptions to ponder from the second play off in Darwin.
The most glaringingly obvious problem from this Western United performance was something that is occasionally forgivable in preseason. Work rate.
Ben Garuccio’s horror of an own goal, almost calmly placed into his own net, without a whole lot of care for the ramifications, was not a very promising start.
Thomas Aquilina and Nathan Grimaldi both took their first half chances superbly, but Western’s lack of ability to deal with second phase balls was the more determining factor here.
When Aquilina made it a double to cap off one of the Jets’ best moves of the match in the second half, there was hardly a United defender in sight to even to attempt to disrupt the effort at the far post.
If this was a regular season game, you would hope Garuccio throws his body to get a better angle on the clearance, you would hope there is more desperation in defence, and you would hope there is more tracking back.
You would hope that when the real sheep stations are up for grabs, that these issues do not even need mentioning. But now without a competitive fixture for almost three months, they are going to have to get themselves tuned up the hard way.
There were positives of course. Garuccio was in his usual dead-eye form when getting forward and crossing off the left.
Expect the combination between him and club debutant Hiroshi Ibusuki to be prolific throughout the A-League Men season, the latter making a good impression with his allowed 30 minutes.
Riku Danzaki also took his chance well when afforded it, to muddy Ryan Scott’s clean sheet.
The assumption perhaps worth busting is the scoreline itself. A three goal margin by half time wasn’t an accurate representation of the game, and if you’re willing to consider it, the goals were scored from less than 0.5 xG worth of chances.
As mentioned, Aquilina and Grimaldi were clinical and the Jets did play well, but the game was far from the complete domination that the scoreline suggests.
Lachie Rose made a respectable start to life leading the Jets’ line. He’s got some pretty big shoes to fill after the departure of last season’s leading goalscorer Stamatelopoulos, but he seems certain to leave no stone unturned in his pursuit of a regular starting spot in the A-League Men.
Constantly running, contributing and organising, Rose did not waste any time getting to work. He knows this season is a massive opportunity for him. Encouraging.
Perhaps the main sour point will be the withdrawal of Phillip Cancar to injury, early in the first half.
All in all, a performance to be proud of that will hopefully set the tone for Newcastle, as they aim to write their own ‘from the ashes’ story in Northern NSW after the failings of last season.
The Jets will accompany Perth Glory into the round of 32, after they defeated Brisbane Roar in the other Australia Cup play off on Tuesday night.
Newcastle will travel to NPL NSW table-toppers Rockdale Ilinden next Wednesday for the next round.