Dees eye farewell win

CLARENCE is bracing for an early onslaught from North Hobart tonight as the club strives to send off retiring veteran Oli Di Venuto with one last victory.

Di Venuto, who spent two years at the Roos before returning to the Demons to add some experience to a young group rebuilding from the ground up, will play his 154th match in the red and blue at North Hobart Oval.

His farewell gives added incentive to the hosts to bring their best to sign off from a 2019 TSL campaign which has delivered plenty of promise.

And Roos coach Jeromey Webberley knows his troops must be ready to fight fire with fire.

“It’s a bit like [Tim] Castle at the start of the year for us, that was backs against the wall, we hadn’t won at that stage and you could sense in the rooms pregame we were on,” Webberley said.

“Diva’s last game, they will be ready for the challenge.

“But that’s exciting for us, Friday night footy — hopefully a nice crowd so that’s something we want to experience. It was a bit of a hostile environment down at the Tigers last week, this week is no different.

“It is a real 50-50 ball game. North Hobart are capable of beating anyone, they beat Launceston, and they embarrassed us six weeks ago.

“We need to make sure we are ready for the contest.”

Since its last bye Clarence has defeated Lauderdale and the Tigers — and arguably should have added the scalp of Glenorchy as well — to silence the critics who were circling after being upset by North Hobart in Round 14.

Webberley said the external barrage had an impact, but that it has only galvanised the group to help finish the season strongly.

“We were getting smashed from everyone outside the four walls, so we had to really unite together.

“I don’t know if it affected the group, but we were down on confidence and I don’t think it helped our confidence at all.

“Would I change it looking back? No, because I reckon it has made the group tighter, right now, and we are a lot stronger for it.

“It is an important game, we want to finish the year on a high and we want to finish our last six games three and three.”