City will travel to Churchill Reserve to take on St Albans Saints, a venue coach Danny Gnjidic believes is one of the toughest trips.

City will be met by an “intimidating” environment as it looks to open its 2018 account.

St Ablans won the NPL2W competition in 2016, but were relegated at the end of last season.

Gnjidic said it was critical his side was switched-on from kick-off and was prepared to work hard in order to gain what would be a valuable away win.

“From an away from home point of view, it’s probably the hardest away venue to go to and get a result,” Gnjidic said.

“It’s a tough place to go, it can be intimidating.

“If you don’t come with your sleeves rolled prepared for a battle, you’re going to end up on the wrong side of the scoreline.

“You’ve got to go there and get a result if you want to consider yourself one of those sides that are going to contend.”

Gnjidic was stoked with his group’s performance last week, drawing 1-1 with the highly-rated Moreland Zebras.

He said while it was a pleasing result, it could have quite easily won the match had City held its level for the full 90 minutes – that will be a focus on Sunday.

“Last week set the bar in regards to what we need to do each week if we want to compete with the top teams.

“This week has been more of the same and maintaining our discipline closer to 90 minutes, because we probably thought we did enough after 65 or 70 minutes last week...you can’t afford to lapse in concentration.

“We’ve got to make sure we’re switched-on for the 90 and avoid any late lapses – that was the difference last week.”

With a fit healthy squad following last week’s positive display Gnjidic did not expect to make any change to the starting line-up. 

Kick-off is at 3pm on Sunday.

SEBASTOPOL Vikings, North Ballarat United and Buninyong will all begin their Football Federation Victoria FFA Cup fixtures this weekend.

They will play Upfield, Watsonia Heights and Point Cook respectively.