The Newcastle Jets sustained a blow ahead of their final home game of the season with leading striker Tara Andrews sidelined due to an ankle complaint.
The former Matildas striker hurt her ankle at training on Tuesday night and was left out of a 17-player Jets squad named by coach Ash Wilson for the clash against finals hopefuls Canberra United at No.2 Sportsground in the W-League's penultimate round on Saturday night.
Jemma House and Evelyn Chronis have been included but two players will be omitted.
Andrews, who reached her 100-game milestone for Newcastle this season, has scored five goals in 10 appearances to be equal-fourth in the league's scorers tally.
"She picked up a little roll," Wilson said. "Hopefully she'll be back running next week and we'll just reassess from there. We'll have to readjust and it gives an opportunity to someone else."
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Leading Canberra's push for a top-four finish will be in-form striker Michelle Heyman. The 32-year-old returned to the W-League this campaign after a season off and has been in sensational form, scoring nine goals in 10 appearances.
The 62-time capped Matilda is the league's all-time leading scorer with 72 goals.
"She's exceptionally dangerous," Wilson said. "She's got the ability to run in behind, come short, turn and shoot with her back at goal, run onto things. But they've got a very quick front line and on transition, in counter-attack movements, they're very dangerous.
"So we need to make sure that we're not turning over the ball in central areas, particularly when we're exposed. And we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can moving forward and putting them under a bit more pressure higher up the field so that they don't get that opportunity to get the ball into those front three."
The Jets have seven points and can finish with 13 points at most while Canberra must win to secure a top-four position. United are fifth with 18 points, one less than fourth-placed Adelaide and two less than Melbourne Victory in third.
"It's a big game for them," Wilson said. "If they win against us, they'll feel a lot more confident about their final four place, so that's something we've talked about as well. But I'm not opposed to spoiling any team's party, so we won't be rolling over for them."
The Jets are coming off a 1-0 loss to Melbourne City in Melbourne while Canberra were 3-2 winners over Perth in their last outing.
"I know we had a loss on the weekend but there were still lots of good performances," Wilson said.
"We had one of the highest pass numbers that we've had in any game. We had a fairly high passing accuracy, so things like that we're still effective but we just need to again be a little bit more composed in front of goals."
Torrential rain on Thursday prevented the Jets from training on No.2 Sportsground. They shifted training to Lake Macquarie Regional Football Facility yesterday and, with more heavy rain predicted, Wilson said they may have to adjust "slightly" to the conditions.
"It just means the ball movement is going to be quick," she said. "Balls in behind are going to run faster, so people are going to need to be wary of that both with and without the ball.
"We'll try to make sure sure first touches are good because you've got the chance of things skidding off. Around goal it's a case of getting in there, making sure we're following through on anything because things are going to maybe skid a little or be parried. Those are little things that we talk about but we don't really speak a whole lot when it comes to the weather."
The game kicks off at 6.35pm.
