The importance of taking all three points from this weekend’s Night Series round is not lost on Jason Barrera.   Inglewood United have home ground advantage over and Bayswater City on Saturday evening in a game both must win or face the very real prospect of making an early exit from the tournament.

“We have to get a win this week,” Barrera explained.   “A loss or a draw would more than likely put us out of contention to proceed to the finals.   It’s not going to be an easy task, Bayswater have been the team to beat over the last few years, but I’m confident that our team has the quality and workrate to get a positive result.”

Inglewood enters round three with three points, level with Bayswater, Perth Glory and Cockburn City but one less than group leader Floreat Athena.   Barrera says the team are unlucky not to have a few more points on the board after strong performances against Floreat, who scored late to claim a 2-1 victory, and Cockburn, where Brian Woodall earned a 1-0 win.

“We played well against Floreat and Cockburn,” the midfielder said.   More so Floreat, we dominated that game and created quite a few chances which on any other day we would have turned into goals.   We were very unlucky to come away without the three points but, credit to Floreat, they made the most of their chances with two screamers.”

“We also dominated the majority of the Cockburn game, especially in the second half.   We didn’t have as many clear cut chances as the previous week and we were fortunate with the goal, which Cockburn’s goalkeeper gifted us.   Overall, we are looking good.   The more games we play together, the better we will get … I’m confident we are going to do well this year.”