Tara Murray
Hume City is hoping a pre-season filled with practice matches will leave them in good stead to start the National Premier League season.
In a very different pre-season to in the past, Hume has spent plenty of time facing opposition in the lead up to the season.
Hume coach Nick Hegarty said that with their FFA Cup run late last year, they had to change how their pre-season looked.
“It’s come around fast,” he said.
“It’s been a long pre-season. It’s never easy to know how to prepare heading into round one, but I think we’re in a good place.
“We normally do six weeks before Christmans and then have a break and do six weeks.
“As we had the [FFA Cup] run we trained for a block and then had all of December off. Now we’ve got six weeks after Christmas.”
Hegarty said had looked to play more games and train less in the pre-season, a move he said they would find out if successful in the first few weeks of the season.
Hume has added three key players to their list, Brandon Lauton, Paul Kuol and Ali Turgut. Lucas Trenkovski and Birhan Elibol who made their debuts during the FFA Cup [now known as Australia Cup] finals are set for a bigger role this season according to Hegarty.
He said they were keen to blood younger players if they were good enough.”
“All our players joined us before Christmas and played in the cup run. We’ve got a couple of younger players who have been in and about the squad.
“The two kids were given three massive games and played really well. They have earned the opportunity to start this season.”
Theo Markelis, Jordan Maricic, Danny Dixon, John McGuigan, Ebu Bekir Capar and Patrick Langlois have all departed.
Hegarty said expectations heading into this season were no different than they usually were.
In 2021, Hume was fourth on the NPL ladder when the season was called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The club made the final of the Dockerty Cup, but was unable to defend its title.
The club also made the round of 16 in the national FFA Cup competition.
“We do not differ from our thinking,” he said.
“We’re aiming to get into the top six as soon as possible,” he said. “Then into the top four and top two.
“We want to make sure we’re on the same page and get the result each week and go from there.”
Hume get their season underway on Altona Magic on Saturday night.
