While Joeys’ 6-1 win over Namoi United last weekend was welcomed, Haussler said they needed to play the full 90 minutes against Easts, and keep the pressure on all the time.

“We’ve really got to step it up a bit because East Armidale are a really strong team,” Haussler said.

“We did back off a bit in the second-half in the game against Namoi. I’m not sure if that was because of the score line or not. It was a lot slower there for a while, but against Armidale, that’s not going to be the case. We have to go full gas the whole time.”

Haussler said the team was still working on its fitness, it was training well and had been practicing a variety of defence and attack scenarios.

“We’ve got a couple of players coming back in from Glen Innes, Daniel Ferris and Dominic Bush. They really make our first grade side a lot stronger,” Haussler said.

He said the first goal would be important.

“We want to get that first goal because we don’t want to be chasing again,” Haussler said.

A good crowd to cheer the team on was also something that entered into Haussler’s calculations.

“We saw against Namoi, they didn’t really have a big crowd and I think that really helps a home team,” he said.

“So it would be great to have a lot of people over there supporting us. I think that would just lift everyone and make them play even better, if there’s a lot of people watching.”