A trip to first-placed Moreland City this Saturday presents the GV Suns with arguably their toughest task of the NPL2 season so far.
City remains unbeaten after five games, with three wins and two draws.
As for the Suns, a 4-1 defeat to Bulleen last weekend was another breach to the hull of a rapidly sinking Suns ship.
For coach Craig Carley, plugging holes in his backline has been a major focus ahead of Saturday’s game.
“They’re (Moreland City) top of the table, it’s going to be a tough time, we’ve got to stop leaking goals, that’s got to be our focus,” he said.
“Like any game we’re going to go there looking for three points, but we certainly want a more dominant defensive display than we have been putting in the last few weeks.”
Despite last week’s loss, Carley is confident his squad’s resilience and continued positivity will start to reap rewards, as they continue to hunt a first win.
“The mood in the camp has been great, the boys have worked really hard in training,” he said.
“We’ve worked on a certain system and how we want to set the game up, like we do every week — we’ve done our homework on the opposition.
“Hopefully we can be hard to break down and we can get back to being really competitive.”
A major positive for the men in orange throughout their tumultuous start to the season has been the development of youth, with a number of young players granted first-team debuts over the past few games.
“Seeing youngsters like Hassan (Alhilfi), Tutu (Taya) and Gerald (Corbo) all make their debut, that’s what we’re all about as a club,” Carley said.
“We want to progress and develop these young players and hopefully they can go on to bigger and better things, hopefully we can provide that platform.
“I thought Gerald was fantastic when he came on last week, just kept it really simple, I’m just really proud of those boys and hopefully they can kick on from here.”