The winter football season is just starting to get into full swing, with all football codes now commencing from this weekend.
The Cootamundra Tri-Colours are preparing for this weekend’s round one clash against Temora Tuskers in the South West Fuels Cup first-grade competition.
The Tri-Colours first round game will mean an away road trip to Temora, with the game slated to kick-off at 3:15pm.
The reigning premiers, have co-coaches Mitch Wakefield and Cam Stanley leading the charge for the Tri-Colours this season, with them both hopeful of going back-to-back. But they are well aware that Temora first up will be no easy beats.
“We’ll travel to Temora to play the Tuskers first up. They are always a tough physical side especially at home. We have been bringing in a lot of contact over the past few weeks at training to ensure the boys are primed and hardened for the round one clash,”
Wakefield said.
“We started pre-season in the first week of February. We have been doing plenty of running but also had the ball in the hand a lot also.
“Cam and I try to incorporate as much work with the ball as possible. It’s one thing to be able to run but we want the boys to be able to catch, pass and make decisions whilst under fatigue.”
The Cootamundra Strikers are looking forward to redeeming themselves this weekend and getting out on the park in what will be their second game of the season. Coming off a 14-0 loss to Hanwood in round one in Griffith prior to the Easter long-weekend break, and whilst their effort for the entire 90-minutes can’t be faulted, the Strikers will be hoping to record a more respectable score line this week.
The Strikers first-grade side will come up against the Tumut Eagles at O’Connor Park in round two of the Pascoe Cup season, kicking-off at 3:20pm on Sunday afternoon, 24 April.
Strikers coach Mick Godbier said following his side’s round one clash against Hanwood that there are lots of areas for improvement for his team.
“We’ve got a lot of things to work on and I know that. The ball distribution in round one wasn’t very good. We need to be better at that. We just gave them far too much ball. We worked so hard to win it back. We were sort of giving it away straight away and you can’t afford to do that for sides like that, they’ll just punish us,”
Godbier said.
“It was a good learning curb and now they know what we’re up against, so we’re looking forward to our next game.”
Good luck to all Cootamundra sides this weekend. Come away with the win.
Tim Warren