Melbourne Victory assistant Aaron Healey is confident his team is ready to fire in the Pre-Season Cup despite a hiccup in their first warm-up match.
Victory open their pre-season campaign against Adelaide in Launceston next Sunday and will be hoping to improve on the form which saw them lose to Victorian Premier League side Green Gully earlier this week.
But Healey said that the team was never really going to take much from the friendly.
"We didn't take much from it. At the end of the day it was our first match after a long week of training against a side that's second in the (Victorian) Premier League," said Healey.
"We didn't expect to get much out of it besides a fitness perspective and we did get that."
Victory's preparations for the new season have already been dealt somewhat of a blow, with the news that Archie Thompson will be a part of Graham Arnold's team for the Beijing Olympics.
This means Thompson, who has been had minimal game time since injuring his knee when playing for the Socceroos against China in March, will be missing from at least the first two rounds of the season.
But Healey believes the team will be able to cover the loss of their marquee striker.
"To go to the Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and we're all supportive of Archie's quest to hopefully bring home a medal with the Olyroos," Healey said.
"We know that's the case now, but obviously with Ney Fabiano, Dan (Danny Allsopp), Nathan Elasi, Tommy Pondeljak, Carlos Hernandez, we've got attacking options and we're confident we can get the right mix and do well," he said.
In previous years Victory have fared poorly in the pre-season competition, but this year's round robin format will allow for more match time.
Healey hopes this means the Victory will have a full complement of players to choose from come round one of the season proper.
"What we aim to do is by round one is have on the selection table have 22-23 fit players available for selection, they're all fit and healthy and they've all had game time, so that's what we aim for to have by the week of round one," Healey said.
"Hopefully by round one, Ernie, myself and the other coaches have a bit of a selection dilemma."
And despite wanting to win the pre-season tournament, Healey said the team's ultimate goal was to be fit and ready for the season proper.
"I think all we can do is just continue to build on what we started a couple of weeks ago with our pre-season," Healey said.
"We're just looking for improvements in performance across the board from all the players and if we can get that throughout the preseason we'll be very happy."