N/W Summer Cup Kicks Off

Will Devonport win the Summer Cup again

We are finally ready to kick off for 2013.This week is the first round of the N/W summer cup hosted by Burnie United FC.

The roster has gone back to the old system with all games being played on Saturdays either at 1230pm or 230pm. There has been a lot of hype surrounding the NPL and especially clubs that do not have a Victory League teams, how weak will they be? Will they be able to field all of the nominations required? What will the refereeing standards be like? And how much will registrations be seeing that the NPL is no longer a top tier competition.

The early game will see Devonport Strikers playing the Somerset Sharks. Both teams have been training for a while but are both going to try out a fair bit of youth as the main senior core has been picked.

Victory League coach Chris McKenna said that they are not allowed to use their Victory League squad in the summer cup, So it will be more than likely a fairly young squad. But most of the young lads have already had 2 pre-season games and only lost by a single goal against vastly more experienced opponents, so it will be a test but we are happy with the way they are progressing.

We will most likely put 3-4 Victory League squad members into the team to allow them to get more game time than they will in the Hudson Cup.

The Somerset Sharks have been on a recruitment drive and have signed some experienced players over the last week to strengthen their side after a poor year last year and will expect to play these guys this week allowing them game time for the up and coming State Cup games over the next few weeks if successful.

Kevin Considine said, the summer cup will allow us to trial and blood new and upcoming players, with the result not as important as the way we play, but we will be taking them seriously. We also play in the state cup qualifiers in round 2 so that will allow us to test more players.

The Second game is between hosts Burnie United FC and the Ulverstone Reds.

After Ulverstone having a great year last year in the league and finals they have lost a couple of their senior players to Devonport for the Victory League.

Stuart Mack has been appointed the senior coach for this year, we have been training since October and numbers have been a little light on due to loosing 7 senior players in total.

Michael Wolfert(green) will line up for Ulverstone again

However we remain confident with the players we have had at training. We are looking forward to the season.

Unusual circumstances have 4 sets of brothers training in our senior squad.

Andrew Gibbson will be instrumental for Burnie again

Burnie have reappointed long time service man Ray Parke as senior coach after having a few years with the under 18’s and winning a few league titles with them. Burnie will be relying on young blood on the field and old knowledge of the field in Coach Ray Parke club person Peter Van Ek said.

It will be a great hit out for all clubs leading into another long season and will give all clubs and coaches a measure on where they are at coming into the real deal.