BOTH the Rural Bank Bendigo Pioneers and Northern Knights will be hunting their second wins of the TAC Cup season when they meet at Preston City Oval on Sunday.
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Since beginning their season with a one-point victory over the Greater Western Victoria Rebels, the Pioneers have suffered a hat-trick of heavy defeats against Murray (57), Gippsland (64) and Oakleigh (70), during which they have been outscored 46 goals to 17.
“The past two weeks in particular we have come up against a couple of really good outfits with players who are at the pointy end of the TAC Cup competition,” Pioneers coach Rick Coburn said on Friday.
“We’re also going through a bit of a period where we haven’t had our captain (Jacob Atley) and have had some injuries to players like Daniel Keating, who offers us a fair bit of structure.
“But we’ll start to get a few players back over the next few weeks and we’ll begin to bring through a number of younger players into the side, so we’re confident we’ll put some good performances together.
“Our message is the same this week… we want consistent effort and a four-quarter performance, which we haven’t had yet this year.”
Both Atley, who has missed the past two games with a back complaint, and ruckman Keating have been named among the inclusions in an extended squad of 27 for the Pioneers’ first game in Melbourne for the season.
“The road trip down to Melbourne is a good opportunity for the boys to be able to spend some time together and we’ve then got another development week on the other side of this game,” Coburn said.
“We then have several road trips after the development week and a number of opportunities where we can get the boys together, which is one of the things our region struggles with in getting them all in the one place for consistent periods of time.”
Sunday’s game between the Pioneers (1-3) and Knights (1-2-1) begins at 2.30pm.
The day’s action at the Preston City Oval gets under way at 12.45pm when the Pioneers and Knights clash in round seven of the TAC Cup Girls season.
It shapes as a testing match for the Pioneers against the Knights, who at 6-0 are one of only two undefeated teams in the competition.
The Pioneers have struggled to impact the scoreboard during a string of five losses in a row in which their highest score has been 22.
