Soccer: Chance for Kingz to balance the ledger

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Wynton Rufer welcomes an early opportunity to exorcise the ghost that was the Football Kingz' worst game of the season when they play the Parramatta Power at North Harbour Stadium tonight.

"It is good that we can play a game straight after such a poor performance as that which we turned in against Melbourne on Sunday," said Rufer.

"If we could have, we would have changed the whole team after that game.

"But this is the players' chance to get it right. You can't play like we did against Marconi, change one player, and have a game like that a week later. It is a mental problem, with inconsistency, individual errors and players switching off all contributing."

With Che Bunce out for two matches after receiving his seventh yellow card of the season, Fred de Jong, John Lammers, Aaran Lines, Jason Batty and Robbie Middleby on the injured list and David Moya and Leigh Kenyon not required, there will be changes tonight.

Lee Jones, Riki van Steeden and Batram Suri are back in contention but will have to wait until later today before finding out if they are in the starting Xl.

Parramatta's 4-0 win over bottom-placed Sydney United in the last round has taken them into eighth place on the league table, two ahead of the Kingz on goal difference.

The game kicks off at 7.30pm.