Hoppers start campaign at Tynedale

Hoppers make the long trip to Tynedale to start the 2023/24 National 2 North season with kick off set for 3pm at Tynedale Park.

Tynedale finished last season in 6th position in National 2 North, 5 places above Hoppers.

Looking ahead to the game, Coach Dan Orwin was in positive mood saying “Our first fixture of the 2023-24 season sees us facing Tynedale, away. Although last season’s results are irrelevant, we lost narrowly to them away and beat them at home. We are more than ready to face Tynedale this weekend, and we look forward to imposing our style of play on them. Last season, despite some good performances, some very close results, and a 19-19 draw at Blaydon, our away form in terms of wins was poor last season. One focus points for us this season is to find a way to win and to close out the tight games away from home. Our 2^nd team kick off their NOWIRUL Cotton Traders Premier League campaign, at home against Lymm, this Saturday so please get down and support them if you can!”

Reflecting on pre-season Dan added “Our preseason training period has been very good, and numbers have been consistently high. The players have worked hard and we have changed the format and focus of our training sessions, altering the way in which we deliver the conditioning elements. The players have responded very well, and our pre-season games have shown the progress that has been made. We know that we still have work to do to get us to where we want to be, but we are seeing the improvements session-on-session. We took the playing squads to Farmer Strong to mix up what we were doing, and these fitness sessions were fantastic for team building and for our resilience under fatigue. One thing that has been notable following the preseason games is how competitive selection is going to be. Having watched the performance against Leeds Beckett and the Vale of Lune, there are several players who’ve been on the fringes of the first team squad, or who’ve spent last season playing for our 2^nd team, that have really impressed the coaches.”

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