Pies finally get to play

HAVING been forced to wait an extra week to kickstart its SFL campaign Claremont is itching to finally get underway when it hosts Cygnet today.

The 11th-hour withdrawal of Brighton from the competition saw the league add a second bye to every weekend — except today and Round 12 — rather than draft a complete new fixture, with the Pies on the short end of the stick to begin.

First-year club coach Luke Potter has done his best to provide a high-intensity program in the past fortnight, but knows coming up against a side with two matches already under its belt tilts favouritism to the visitors in terms of game fitness.

“We drew the bye in Round 1 and then had Brighton in Round 2, as soon as they dropped out instead of redrawing the roster they kept the bye,” Potter said. “It’s obviously not ideal preparation but what do you do?

“Round 1 we had a full intraclub at home, mixed reserves and seniors and had a full fivequarter hitout to try and get some match-like fitness into the body.

“You can train as hard as you want but until you get matches, it is completely different.

“We have been training pretty solid over the last week so hopefully we are right, but Cygnet have had two close hitouts, Dodges and Huonville, they have had two great games so we have to come out knowing they have played eight quarters of footy already.

“They will be ahead of us but we have to just come out and put our pre-season into practice and get a good start.”

SFL football operations manager Tony Gibson said he understood the frustrations for several teams dealing with lack of continuity with consecutive weeks off, but the decision to stick with the original roster was in the hands of the clubs.

“It was unanimously agreed to not change the fixture due to planning that had already occurred, even though I presented them with an alternative to have no byes,” Gibson said.

In other Good Friday clashes Dodges Ferry and Lindisfarne put their early-season unbeaten records on the line at Shark Park, one of Huonville and Hobart will open their accounts at Huonville, while New Norfolk hosts Sorell.