ARTHUR Papas made improving the Jets' abysmal home record a priority when he was appointed coach.
Success-craved Jets fans were treated to a solitary win at McDonald Jones Stadium in the 2020-21 campaign.
Under Papas, the Jets sent supporters home happy from six games at Turton Road.
It was enough to move them up the table, but not enough to propel the Jets into the play-offs.
The Jets' last finals appearance was in season 2017-18 and was forged on the back of eight wins at home.
Newcastle make a belated start to their campaign against Perth Glory at McDonald Jones Stadium on Saturday - the season opener against the Mariners in Gosford was washed out.
Wellington Phoenix visit in round three and Papas has emphasised the importance of a winning start.
"Last year, we had a strong record at home," he said. "It is a lot to do with the support we get here. It is a difficult place for teams to come to as well. We want to continue that.
"If we are home playing at home, we want to play a certain way.
"It has been one final series in 12 seasons. We need to make sure wherever we go, we have a certain mentality and way we want to play. We are a different team in terms of some characteristics. We have a lot of speed in the front third and are able to get behind teams possibly a lot easier. We expect teams to come here and try to make it difficult for us to play our football.
"You want to start the season well. The energy is really positive. They are trying to work together to bring success to Newcastle. From a group point of view, they are excited but it has been bubbling for a while."
Papas had named Carl Jenkinson, Mark Natta, James McGarry, Brandon O'Neill, Beka Dartsmelia and Trent Buhagiar to make their debut for the Jets against the Mariners.
However, he will adopt a horses for courses approach in finalsing an XI for Perth.
Matt Jurman and Reno Piscopo are likely to come into contention.
"We picked a team last week that we thought was the right team to play against the Central Coast," Papas said.
"Perth is a different type of team with different strengths. We will make some calls on that today. We have everyone available which is really positive."
Perth opened their season with a 1-0 loss to Western Sydney at Comm Bank Stadium and have spent the past week in camp on the Central Coast.
Coach Ruben Zadkovich has overhauled the roster, bringing in Mustafa Amini (Sydney FC), Aaron McEneff (Hearts) and Salim Khelifi (FC Zurich) to go with the experience of Bruno Fornaroli and Darryl Lachman.
"I thought they were very strong," Papas said. "They recruited heavily, spent a lot of money and will be a tough team. [Against Wanderers] they looked disciplined, they worked hard and pressed well in certain areas, didn't concede much and had some big threats on set pieces as well.
"I'm expecting them to come out and have a go at us. Especially early on, I think they will try and press us and be very aggressive. They have the players to do that.
"We have to be brave enough to play our football regardless of what they are doing."
Zadkovich was confident of improvement after a "poor" performance against Wanderers.
"We had seven new faces in the team and a lot of those guys had never done the travel," he said. "There were some different reasons for a bit of a flat performance.
"We didn't create much but we didn't look vulnerable like we did last year.
"Arthur [Papas] has been in the job a year or so now. They probably have their processes down a bit tighter than us.
"Obviously they are at home which is a massive advantage for Newcastle. Having been a captain there. I know what it is like when you are at home. You can make that place a real fortress."
