WARRNAMBOOL District Hockey Association officials have turned innovators to alleviate a bye in their senior men’s grade this season.
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Team X will join Strikers, Storm, Technique, Pirates and Buccaneers in the grade this season, but won’t earn points nor have a consistent line-up.
WDHA president Tomas Tait said the outfit would come up against whichever side had the bye, with its players being a mixture from other clubs.
Tait encouraged top players to take advantage of Team X as a way of preparing for representative tournaments such as Country Week.
“It means instead of having a bye we’re having a team that anyone from the other teams can play for. We’re using it for Country Week, for when we go down to Melbourne. We’re hoping to defend the title we won.
“The big thing is when you pick a representative team, the players don’t get to play with each other.
“This way they can go ‘I’m playing for Buccaneers on Friday night, I can then play with Team X on Saturday afternoon’.”
Tait said Team X would always play the last match on Saturday afternoon, ensuring those who commit are not exhausing themselves for their initial match.
Tait predicted the opponents of Team X — the side originally scheduled to have a bye — would benefit from having a non-competitive match.
“They can try different stuff. They can put players in different positions and experiment with their team. They can find out how different things work.”
The WDHA season got under way at Albert Park last night with Buccaneers taking on Pirates.
Strikers meet Storm at 1.30pm today. The Team X concept gets its first trial against Technique at 6pm.
In the senior women’s grade, Technique meets Strikers at 3pm and Subbies play Saints at 4.30pm.
The under 17 grade also starts this morning. Pirates meet Technique and Storm plays Buccaneers. Strikers have the bye.
“It’s like everything, it’s a bit hard to tell (which sides are favourites),” Tait said. “Strikers men would be the standout but Storm have a few handy players as well. They’ll both do pretty well.
“For the women, Subbies this year will be the team to look out for. In the under 17s it might be Buccaneers and Pirates.”
Wednesday night under 13s start on April 29 and Friday night under 15s on May 1. HookIn2Hockey, for under 11s and under nines, begins May 2.
