The Hawks were embarrassed by Tolland last weekend, going down 6 to 1.

Strikers co-coach Adam McPhail said the visitors would be wanting to reclaim some glory.

While the Strikers haven’t be beaten in six weeks, McPhail is expecting the match with last year’s premiers to be tough.

“We’re short a lot of players this weekend,” McPhail said.

Co-coach Brent Farnsworth has snapped his ankle and will require surgery, ending his season.

Dylan Berkrey has returned to Europe while Steve Armstrong is unavailable.

Derek Krogh will spend a week on the sidelines after receiving his third yellow card.

“We will be calling on our depth from reserves,” McPhail said.

“We have a nice streak and it would have been good to play at full strength.”

McPhail said Cathal Breslin and reserve grade coach Tom Phillips would be likely to get called upon to help shoulder some of the work.

He said they’d both played first grade before and would be able to handle the pressure.

“If we play the we know we can, and Breslin and Phillips fit into our game plan then we’re confident we’ll have a good chance,” McPhail said.

With Farnsworth sidelined for the season, McPhail said the team’s other senior players would be needed to step up, including Josh Purtell, Nick Ashe and Aaron Kemp.

“We have to play for the full 90 minutes, in Junee we were one-all, we know the winning goal would come but didn’t know when,” he said.

“We stayed calm and kept attacking until the dying minutes.”

It was at the 86^th minute that Purtell scored the winning goal to give the Strikers their win.

“We’ll need to keep that same mindset for the game,” McPhail said.