Match of the Round: Kingborough Lions v Clarence Zebras
The Match of the Round for this week features the Battle of Franklin between the Kingborough Lions and Clarence Zebras. The match will see the two sides playing for a special Cup and raising funds and awareness for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia.
Prostate cancer survivor Rick Bennett has been a driver of the event and he spoke to the importance of the occasion at a Friday morning press conference.
"This is a fantastic initiative from both clubs," he said.
"As a prostate cancer survivor, I’ve been really blessed to have these two clubs really get behind it.
"One in five men over the age of 50 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, so we all know that there is someone in our lives or in the community that will be effected by this dreadful disease at some point."
Bennett said sporting clubs were the perfect vehicle to help spread awareness.
“Talking to players and sporting clubs, they tend to be more open and willing to because of that team environment, so they are able to talk about it a lot more," he said.
"Mostly the clubs have young players, so this can prepare them for the future and normalise having conversations with family members; there is no doubt some of those players will be impacted [by prostate cancer] in their lives."
Left to right: Kingborough Lions player coach Alfred Hess; Rick Bennett; Clarence Zebras coach Mark Astley and player Mitch Higgins with the Battle of Franklin Cup, which will be contested on Saturday night.
Lions coach Alfred Hess said the game would be an important occasion for his side.
"It’s a really important event on our competitive calendar, to be able to be part of an initiative that has or uses sport as a vehicle to achieve some social or community outcomes is really important," he said.
"It’s an honour and a privilege for our club to be involved in this initiative, so it's really important for us.”
The Lions will enter the match off the back of Monday’s heartbreaking extra-time defeat in the Lakoseljac Cup final, something Hess admits the side needs to find a way past mentally.
“The emotions, those feelings of disappointment are all still there, so we need to move past them - we’ve got to have pretty short-term memories in that respect, in terms of recovering quickly and getting up for this match," he said.
"Certainly, you wouldn’t be human if you weren’t still grappling with it and trying to move past it, but the task is one that is more mental or psychological, to try move on quickly, but we are getting there."
It won’t just be psychologically that the Lions need to recover, with some tired bodies likely following the bruising 120-minute battle.
“We’ve had a process of recovery; fortunately, we have good staff to take care of those processes," Hess said.
"We have a few sore bodies, but I would expect availability to be close to full. It's part of the competitive season and when you have the privilege of playing in Cup matches, it's sort of the consequence that you need to be able to back it up in the league. “
Whilst disappointed to have tasted defeat, Hess said there were positives to take away from the Cup run.
"Some of the silver linings are that things are tracking quite well for us, so we if we keep getting to these sort of matches and performing at this level, our day may come eventually, so that bodes well for the future," he said.
His Clarence Zebras counterpart Mark Astley was also excited for Saturday evening's clash.
"I think it’s a great initiative, and it's awesome that Rick has organized it," he said.
"Community-based clubs in any sport are a great vehicle to make change and raise awareness.
"It will mean a lot to the boys to not only hopefully win a game of football, but to be playing for a greater cause.”
Astley hoped the Lions might be tired from Monday, but warned that was not something the Zebras could bank on.
"It could go one of two ways, the tired bodies might struggle but at the same time it might well provide them that little bit of extra motivation that they need, that extra 10% that might give them something," he said.
"So we’re not going to take them lightly, we’ve already come up against Devonport this season who were off the back of a 120-minute Cup game and we were taught a lesson that day, so we’re definitely not expecting them to roll over."
Astley said the side had done their preparation and were ready to go against the Lions.
“Nobody in this league is an easy team to play against, especially not Kingborough as they’ve shown this season with their results," he said.
"We’ve got a plan, every system, every team is going to have their strengths and weaknesses which we’ve identified and now we look forward to putting our best foot forward and trying to exploit them out there."
Last time out, the Zebras fell 1-0 to ladder leaders South Hobart, though they performed strongly and were unfortunate to not take anything away from the clash, with Astley believing they can build from it.
"First half I thought we weren’t great, we followed the gameplan but there was a lack of intensity," he said.
"But certainly we came out in the second half and it was by far our best 45 minutes this season; we were unlucky not to score, but that’s football. We know that if we play like that every week, we can beat anyone.
"We’ve known internally all season that at our best we can compete and outplay the better teams, it's just up to us to put results away and keep performances up for 90 minutes."
In other Round 10 action, the round gets underway at Valley Road where the Devonport Strikers take on Launceston City. The pair played out a scoreless draw in their Round 3 meeting and this should be similarly tight as both sides continue to get stronger as the season wears on.
At KGV, the Glenorchy Knights will look to turn their attention back to the league following their Cup triumph as they host a Riverside Olympic outfit who produced their best effort of the year in their last start when they downed the Kingborough Lions 4-3.
Finally on Sunday, South Hobart will be eager to maintain top spot on the table as they take on last-placed Launceston United, who continue to search for a first point of the campaign but will be up against it on the road to D'arcy Street.
Round 10
Saturday 15 June
Devonport v Launceston City, Valley Road, 4:30pm LIVE STREAM
Glenorchy Knights v Riverside Olympic, KGV, 4:45pm LIVE STREAM
Kingborough Lions v Clarence Zebras, Lightwood Park, 6:30pm LIVE STREAM
Sunday 16 June
South Hobart v Launceston United, D'arcy Street, 2:00pm LIVE STREAM