Picton Rangers v Corrimal Rangers

Hume Oval

Kick-off: Saturday, 3pm

New Corrimal boss Richard Lloyd faces a stern test in his first game as Head Coach of the club when they take on Picton this weekend.

The two sides currently share 4^th spot on the ladder with 38 points apiece and Lloyd will be hoping he can get his new gig off to a flying start.

“Dave Cuda’s done a great job setting it up and I’m just hoping to continue with that,” said Lloyd.

“Corrimal have some pretty high ambitions to go up to the Premier League.

“They’re putting things in place off the field as well as allowing the coaches to try and do their best for the team on the pitch.

“Picton have quite a few goal scorers up there and they’ve been playing some good football recently so they’re definitely going to be a formidable opponent.”

Lloyd was formerly in charge of NSW National Premier League outfit South Coast Wolves but parted ways with the club in April after a disappointing start to the season.

The coach steps into an ideal situation for a new coach with Corrimal already well placed to make a run at this season’s finals.

Lloyd was on the sideline for the northern suburbs club’s 2-0 win over Balgownie last week and with three training sessions under his belt he feels he has a good grasp of how things are going.

“I went down last week and was on the bench with Dave [Cuda] and we got a pretty good win against Balgownie,” he said.

“I know Dave and the club have set quite a few things up the only issue we really have at the moment is that we’ve got a pretty light squad due to injuries and some previous commitments.”

The round 20 fixture sets up an enticing match up for spectators as the competitions top goal scorers, Picton (52 goals scored), take on the best defensive unit so far in Corrimal (19 goals against).

Picton’s impressive goal scoring has hit a peak in recent weeks as they netted 10 goals in their last two games with 6-0 and 4-0 wins over Kemblawarra and Wests Illawarra respectively.

“It’s been pretty good recently in terms of scoring, but having said that it was against teams that were probably a little bit under-strength,” said Picton Head Coach Brett Morley.

“You still have to turn up and do the business and we’ve scored some nice goals in what’s been a good couple of weeks for us so hopefully we can build on that.”

The Home Team will be searching for some revenge over Corrimal after a 1-0 loss back in round seven.

“This is a huge game for both clubs and I daresay there will be nothing left out on the pitch by either Corrimal or us so it’s going to be one I think will go right down to the wire,” said Morley.

Richard’s going to add a wealth of experience to the team, I’m not sure how much will change in such a short time but they’re a pretty adept side anyway and he’s only going to add to that.

We’ve got a couple of little niggles but we’ve been lucky enough to rest a couple the last few weeks so we’re kind of getting back to somewhere near full strength so there won’t be any excuses in that regard.

 

Key Players:

Tim Rupprecht was the only Picton player to score in both their recent victories and appears to be in some good form heading into the business end of the season.

Nick Tortorella came off the bench to score all three of Corrimal’s goals in their win over Balgownie last weekend and will be hoping he can continue finding the back of the net in round 20.

 

Julian Keith

FSC Reporter