COULD BE A BLUE DAY FOR LAUDERDALE

ON the back of a four-game losing streak, Lauderdale faces the toughest task in Tasmanian football – taking on Launceston at Windsor Park.

The Blues, last year’s champs, sit undefeated atop this year’s ladder with an average winning margin of 94 points. And this figure is even more imposing at home, with the average difference 109 points from the Blues’ two games at Windsor Park this year.

Lauderdale coach Daniel Willing is only too aware of the challenge facing his young side today and believes the full story of the day won’t be told just by the scoreboard. “We are definitely looking at other things,” Willing said.

“At the end of the day the scoreboard is the most important thing, but reality is we’ve got a really young group, we are working on some things that we need to put in place and a lot of that is being the execution part of our game.”

One big bonus for the Bombers is the return of former Geelong and Brisbane small forward Allen Christensen.

Christensen, 29, suffered a bad hamstring injury in round two that was expected to keep him out for up to 10 weeks, but the 133-AFL game veteran has returned after just four weeks.

“Obviously we missed him a fair bit through this period, we haven’t been playing well,” he said.

“Not just his ability to play good footy, we all know what his talent is, but his leadership is outstanding and his ability to teach and direct out on the ground, we saw that through the pre-season practice matches and the first round, it is just outstanding.”