In a team dominated by teenagers, 16-year-old goalkeeper Taylor Pate will make his first grade debut.

Tredinnick said it had been a challenging year for the side who have lost the majority of last year’s playing squad.

They currently sit anchored to the bottom of the Football Mid North Coast Premier League ladder.

Captain Ryan Squires is no certainty to take the field with his partner giving birth earlier in the week.

“We don’t have much depth at the moment and we’re only got two or three really experienced players,” Tredinnick said.

“It’s been a difficult year.”

The coach remains confident his side will notch up a couple of wins by the end of the season.

“We’re definitely underdogs this weekend, but we’ll win a few matches by the end of the year,” he said.

“Our main focus has got to be on keeping possession, because that’s what all the good teams do.”

The absence of three regular first graders has Port United coach Nathan Wade set to call on reinforcements for the clash.

Elliot Breaks, Andy Collins and Simon Granfield all appear unlikely to play against the Redbacks, providing Wade with a slight selection headache.

Kaleb Langbein’s three yellow cards has also forced Wade’s hand with the midfielder relegated to the bench.

Luckily, the first grade coach said his pre-season was spent on selecting a first-grade squad of 14 players from week to week.

“I picked those players at the start of the season for times like this weekend,” he said.

“It means we have a different side playing from week to week and doesn’t hurt us too much.”

Jack Pilgrim, Brendan Prince and Connor Hughes will come into Wade’s starting 11 with Matt Bale set to shift to a more central role behind the strikers.

“Jack will come in for Kaleb and it’s a straight swap with Princey and Elliot and Connor and Andy,” Wade said.

United’s reserve grade side currently sit in second position which created a competition for positions.

“That’s the advantage of first grade going well – we joke about it at training all the time that reserve grade players are looking pretty strong,” Wade said.

“That keeps the first graders on their toes because the reserve graders are pushing them along.”

Despite the Redbacks’ lowly position on the ladder, Wade was expecting them to come out firing.

“They always lift against us,” Wade said.

“We’ve had a look at their results from this season, although we’re not trying to focus too much on what they do.”

Wade will look for United to start the match in better fashion than they did last weekend where they struggled for the opening 15 minutes.

“We’ve been working on not giving the ball away so cheaply at training this week,” the coach said.

“Last week we strung two or three good passes together and then turned it over. We want to be better than that.”

First grade kicks off at 3pm at Dixie Park on Saturday.