Central Coast will embrace the daunting challenge of facing Wellington Phoenix in their return to New Zealand as they fight to snare an A-League Men finals spot.
The eighth-placed Mariners are four points outside the top six after fighting back from 2-0 down with 10 men for a 2-2 draw with Western Sydney on Tuesday night.
Wellington, who leapt to fifth with a 1-0 win over Perth Glory on Wednesday, are due to play their first home game since May 30 last year when they host the Mariners on Sunday.
"Every game is going to count. We've got a couple of games in hand on some teams, but unless you win those games, it doesn't matter," Mariners coach Nick Montgomery said.
"We've got five games to go now and we're going to go out to try and win every game.
"We're the first team that has to travel to New Zealand on the weekend. So we'll go there, it'll be a good atmosphere and it'll be another experience for this team of very, very young players.
"They've played in a FFA Cup final, they're not afraid of playing in a big atmosphere but it's going to be another good good experience for them.
"It's not going be an easy game. We'll go there full of confidence like we're playing with at the minute and five games to go, we'll give everything we've got for five games."
The race for the finals is heating up but Montgomery said he believed there was no pressure on his players to land a top-six berth.
Lewis Miller (red card) will be suspended while Montgomery confirmed Oliver Bozanic wouldn't travel to New Zealand for personal reasons, with his absence from the Mariners' game day squad set to extend beyond a month.
"Oli's not travelling to New Zealand because he's got a personal issue which I fully respect," he said.
Montgomery said he was unsure if Bozanic would play again before the end of the season.
With the Wanderers effectively consigned to missing finals for a fifth consecutive season, coach Mark Rudan suggested their last few games would be played with an eye to the future.
"I need to have a good think about what the remaining games look like, there's still plenty of games to go," he said.
"We clearly want to win every game and that's the focus. But I want to know, who wants to be here moving forward. It's simple as that."
