Launceston City will be looking to bounce back from Lakoseljac Cup heartbreak by resuming their stunning record in Northern derbies.
Daniel Syson’s team were devastated by losing last weekend’s semi-final to Southern Championship side South East United, but will resume NPL Tasmania commitments against a Launceston United side beaten 5-0 in the first round of fixtures.
“Probably one of the toughest losses I’ve experienced in terms of the expectations and where we’ve been at,” Syson said about Sunday’s shock 2-0 loss in Sorell.
“It was quite a lonely drive back. We haven’t had many of them this year but that was a tough one for all of us.
“We’re at a level this year where we expect better. We analysed the game, looked at the clips, the players know what they can do better. We need to be at the level we were before and get back to what we’re good at. It’s a case of parking it and moving on.”
City have won all eight matches against United and Riverside in the last two seasons with an aggregate score of 28-3, so will hope to continue that at Birch Avenue on Saturday.
“I think historically while I’ve been at the club we’ve done exceptionally well in the derbies and it’s just a case of us trying to get back to the performance levels we’ve set out,” Syson added. “We don’t become a bad team overnight. Just because we have a bad 45 minutes of football it doesn’t define the season and the boys are keen to set things right.”
However, facing him will be City life member Lino Sciulli whose United side will have the incentive of leapfrogging Olympic into sixth place with a positive result.
“It’s a tough one, they do very well in derbies and we’ll have our work cut out for us,” he said.
“We’ll go out and try and play to the best of our ability. When you’re playing against a top quality side you have to be accountable.
“We got out to win every game. Obviously that’s not happening at the moment, but we’ll work hard and get the best result we can on the day.”
Sciulli said there was no danger of split loyalties against his former team.
“City’s a big part of my life and always will be, but I’m in charge of Launceston United and all my focus is on them.”
The second half of United’s Saturday statewide double-header will see the third-placed hosts take on bottom side Taroona in the Women’s Super League.
With second-bottom Riverside to follow next week, United coach Al Ollington was warning his side against looking too far ahead.
“Taroona’s a great club and I think realistically their results probably don’t reflect the improvements that they’ve made,” he said.
“The difficulty is every team is improving at the same time.”
United sit on three wins and three losses, six points adrift of the top two but are still wary of a team which went goalless through five games before a 3-2 loss to Riverside.
“We certainly don’t take any team in the league lightly and will go in with a high level of respect knowing that we need to do the business to get the result,” he said.
“We set the goal at the beginning of the year that we wanted to be challenging at the top of the table. We’re obviously not there at the moment.
“But the confidence around the team is that we can mix it even with South and Devonport. We certainly look forward to those games in a few weeks’ time but right now we’ve got to focus on Taroona and then Riverside.”
Rampaging wing-back Laura Dickinson scored twice in United’s last match against Glenorchy and said the league is closer than the points gaps would suggest.
“Everyone’s improving each game so it’s going to be interesting going into the rest of the season,” she said.
“We haven’t come up against any team where it has not been a competitive game and I think that’s really good.
“There’s obviously two teams at the top of the ladder but I think third, fourth and fifth can really challenge for those spots, so it’ll be interesting.”
Taroona coach Riley Pitchford said his team took confidence from getting on the goalsheet last match and carried a greater threat into the second round of fixtures.
“We’re a bottom of the table team at the moment so are focusing on filling our own gaps,” he said.
“We’ve had a lot of conversations over the last couple of weeks about tweaking some of those problem areas that teams have been able to exploit in that first round of the season.
“We definitely expected and hoped we’d be in a better spot. We’ve got a talented group of players (but) are probably missing a key goal-scorer, I think that’s our main issue. But I’m still quite impressed with the growth and development that we’ve had so far.”
NPL Tasmania, Round 8
Friday, May 23
8.15pm Glenorchy v Clarence, KGV
Saturday, May 24
12.15pm Launceston United v Launceston City, Birch Avenue
2.30pm Kingborough v South Hobart, Lightwood Park
4.30pm Riverside Olympic v Devonport, Windsor Park
Women’s Super League, Round 8
Saturday, May 24
2.15pm Riverside Olympic v Devonport, Windsor Park
2.30pm Launceston United v Taroona, Birch Avenue
Sunday, May 25
12.30pm Kingborough v South Hobart, Lightwood Park
Bye: Glenorchy