THE wait might have been a little longer than expected, but Portland’s soccer teams are set for their first round of action today when they travel to Port Fairy to take on the Plovers in round one of the South West Victoria Football Association’s 2024 season.

Portland’s senior women’s team will take part in its first fixture tomorrow at 2pm against Warrnambool Rangers in Warrnambool, in what will be an exciting occasion for the team as it will be their first game since the side was re-established after an absence of several years.

The Panthers men's side have been hard at work for a number of months preparing for the season ahead, and their division one side has been bolstered by the return of co-coach Dylan Murray – who will work alongside Anu Ganugapati in the role – along with half a dozen new recruits.

Murray and Ganugapati are stepping into the role vacated by last year’s playing coach Stephen Von Tunk who is set to move away from Portland in the near future.

Murray said the entire playing group is “itching” to get its season underway, adding they’re “super confident” of finding success this time around.

“We’ve had an awesome preseason including a couple of practice matches, and I think our Australia Cup match opened a lot of the boys’ eyes to the level they need to get to and how hard they need to work,” he said.

“A lot of them have aspirations of reaching that level of the game and it starts by putting in the work here.”

The season had originally been intended to start a couple of weeks ago before the association was forced to delay the start of the season due to the addition of Horsham and District to the competition.

However, Murray said this hasn’t affected his side’s preparation for the season, only serving to make them keener start.

“It’s been a little bit of a blessing in disguise, we’ve had a couple of extra weeks to teach a few new formations and it’s just left everyone even more excited to get going.”

Murray said the side has welcomed in a number of recruits for the season ahead, along with witnessing another year of development amongst their established group of young Panthers.

“We’re looking to play a more attacking style this year, and that’s primarily due to the 17-18-year-olds we have in our squad, the likes of Bodie (Steel), Ceejay (Durbidge) and Sandy (Trace) among others, we just really want to see what they’re capable of,” he said.

“Hopefully with some attacking formations and a plethora of talent we can create a really strong brand of soccer that should also be good to watch as a spectator.

“In addition to Andy (Drill) and Seamus (O’Kelly) we’ve had a few other recruits come through the door which is exciting for the club.”

Murray said he’s excited to work alongside Ganugapati across the season as whole, saying they’ve already built good chemistry between the two of them.

“Whenever either of us has a suggestion, we always have a very positive attitude towards it, it’s always ‘yes let’s try this’,” he said.

“For myself this is a good opportunity to give something back, last season I played here (in 2022) I was very focused on my own game and kind of just had my sights set on what I needed to do to help us win the premiership.

“But this year the focus is on more than just winning games or premierships, I really want to see the players we have here develop and become better players.”

Portland’s opening match against Port Fairy will get underway at 3.30pm tomorrow.

• The division two men’s side will also be in Port Fairy, with their fixture starting at 10.30am.

Portland’s under-17s will also be in Warrnambool taking on Warrnambool Wolves on Sunday, while the under-10s and 14s will travel to Ararat to take on Stawell and the under-12s had a round one bye.