NORTH Bendigo begins its Heathcote District Football League season on Saturday in a rivalry game that has its roots back in the old Golden City competition.
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The Bulldogs make the trip to Huntly to take on the Hawks in their annual Golden City Cup match.
North Bendigo, which holds the cup, had the bye in last week’s opening round.
The Bulldogs have new joint-coaches at the helm in club legend Rob Bennett and the experienced Neville Massina, with North Bendigo to field a team with plenty of new recruits.
North Bendigo’s strong recruiting has landed players of the calibre of Michael Leech, Darcy Richards, Tony Plim and Tyson Findlay, who have all joined the Bulldogs straight from the Bendigo Football League.
“There’s a lot of new names on paper, but most of the recruits have played every practice match,” Bennett said on Friday.
“And the boys who we’ve got from out of town made a really good effort to get up to training during the pre-season and make sure we’re together and all as one.
“Even though we had the bye last week, our training over the past couple of weeks has been fantastic and all those new players are really keen to give a good account of themselves in their first game for the club.”
The Bulldogs will be close to full-strength, although Daniel Sipthorp, Ryan Gow and Sam Robertson are three who will be missing.
• Other round two HDFL games: Colbinabbin v Leitchville-Gunbower; Heathcote v LBU; White Hills v Mount Pleasant.
