Corowa-Rutherglen teenager Will Robinson will fill the gaping hole left by boom recruit James Lawton’s suspension.
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The Roos are coming off a winless season with Lawton expected to provide the attacking potency to snap that worrying drought, but he won’t play against North Albury on Saturday.
“Will Robinson will probably be the guy there in terms of front-line forward,” coach Terry Burgess said.
“The rest just have to share the load, Jack Bates, our young centre half-forward, Sam Harvey, a small forward.
“Our midfielders will just have to get shots on goal to get us up to that 12-14 goals to give us some hope of winning the game.”
North toppled the Roos by 30 points in their round 17 match last year.
“We played them in a practice match and they ended up beating us by a couple of points,” North co-coach Clinton Gilson said.
“We will play an exciting brand and they will play pretty similar to us.”
The Hoppers welcome back a host of former players, including siblings Ben and Josh Lloyd, along with Clay Moscher-Thomas.
North has a similar issue to the Roos in that it too is after forwards, with two of last year’s top three goal-kickers in Ricky Whitehead (Wodonga) and Ben Fulford (Canberra Demons) leaving the club.
“Jayden Beaumont has been playing forward, while we’ve got Clay Moscher-Thomas and Brad Spurr,” Gilson said.
The Hoppers started last year positively, winning four of the first six.
But they collapsed, winning only one of their last 12.
“This one’s really important because it can really set us up and give us a fair bit of momentum,” Gilson said.
Once again, the Hoppers will depend heavily on Dan Leslie.
The veteran is co-coaching and it will be interesting to see if the workload diminishes his impact.