Southern draw stretches ‘limits of what is reasonable’

THE Southern United players might want to take their sleeping bags to this weekend’s national futsal league matches.

The side has been dealt one of the harshest draws any team could imagine experiencing at a national level.

It starts its late game on Saturday night against host Auckland at 9pm.

That is followed by an early wakeup for an 8am kickoff against Bay of Plenty the next day.

To make matters worse, the venue for this year’s competi

tion has changed from previous years.

That leaves Southern staying a 30km drive down the motorway from the Bruce Pulman Arena.

Saturday’s game will finish about 10.30pm, but it could be midnight before the side has eaten, showered and travelled back to the hotel.

It will probably have to be up around 5.30am to play the next day.

On top of that, the team is catching an early flight out of Dunedin on Saturday morning, meaning the players will have to be up around 5am.

It all makes for a very long couple of days.

‘‘There’s not a huge amount we can do about it,’’ Southern coach Darren Hart said.

‘‘But it does seem they are kind of stretching the limits of what is reasonable for the players to do with that turnover.

‘‘Just because it’s such an intense period to get that little sleep between two really intense days.

‘‘It’s not really ideal for anyone. But you know, we just have to deal with it.

‘‘We can grumble about it later and talk about things for next year, but there’s no real purchase in worrying about it now.’’

On top of those two games, there are games at 1.30pm on Saturday against Northern and 12.30pm on Sunday against Waikato.

Getting sleep when and where it could is the approach the side is going to take.

‘‘All we can really do is try to get people to take naps and sleep when they can.

‘‘We’re out really early — I haven’t checked the flight schedule — but I understand we’re stopping in Christchurch for a while.

‘‘So if we’ve got two hours in Christchurch we’ll try and get some sleep and have some food then.

‘‘Then between our 1.30pm game and the 9pm game we’ll probably get everyone back to the accommodation and try to take a two or threehour sleep if we can.

‘‘You’ve got to do it in little chunks. There’s not much more you can do, really.’’

The side enters the weekend placed fourth, although has a fourpoint buffer on the fifthplaced Canterbury United.

Hart is hoping for at least two wins from the weekend, as the side looks to solidify its spot in the top four.

From there it will have a better idea of what is required for the last tournament — which includes the finals — in two weeks.