THE Hamilton Kangaroos will be hoping for a big crowd when the club hosts its first Hampden Football Netball League fixture for the season today.

With no capacity limits and all facilities open, Melville Oval is set to come alive with a sea of blue and white with the Kangaroos hosting Warrnambool in a round two clash.

Kangaroos senior captain, Brady Hicks said the team was determined to get on the winners list a after falling short of Koroit in the season opener.

“It was good to get back into the season full stop,” he said.

“Obviously we didn’t get the result we wanted to in round one, but it is a whole different ball game when it is on our home deck.

“It will be good to finally get a crowd at the footy again, the deck is looking quite nice, so hopefully we can get our first win for the season.”

The Blues are also coming off a round one loss, dropping their opening game to Portland, with the Kangaroos losing the corresponding fixture against Warrnambool by 27 points last year.

Hicks said he’d had a look at the game from Reid Oval and said he wasn’t expecting too many changes from the 2021 Warrnambool side.

“I had a bit of a glance at their game and both Warrnambool and Portland seem to be fairly good as well,” he said.

“I don’t think Warrnambool has changed too much as far as players are concerned, but we will just stick to our game plan.

“We will worry about a couple of theirs, but most importantly try and get our game plan across the line.

“It (Melville Oval) is one of the smallest grounds and especially playing against Warrnambool coming off the biggest ground in the league, there are a couple of tricky pockets here which the wind can play havoc too, so it definitely is an advantage playing here.”

Jason Rowan started the season off positively for Warrnambool with four goals and will attract plenty of attention from the Hamilton defenders.

“Jason has been good for forever and a day,” he said.

“We have been fortunate enough this season to have multiple choices we can throw on him, so if something isn’t quite working, we will have second and third options which we will go to as well.

With a reduced bench at the end of last weekend’s game, the Kangaroos are giving players the best chance to get up for the game.

“We finished with 17 fit players, but I already know of a couple who are raring to go,” Hicks said.

“(There will be) a couple of fitness tests on a couple of fellas and we will leave that until even Friday night to give them every shot of getting up for the game.”

In the netball side of things, Emma Sommerville has taken on the captaincy of the Open team and will take to the court for the first time today after missing round one.

The former Hamilton junior said she was looking forward to getting out there in the blue and white and is confident of a strong response following a 34-goal loss to the Saints last week.

“I am really privileged to be heading up such a great team of girls,” she said.

“Obviously it was a bit of a tough start last week with four of us missing and we are really excited to get back into it this week.

“We are only missing Eve (Duckmanton) and maybe Leesa (Iredell).”

With plenty of new faces in the squad, Sommerville will lead with voice and by example, but said there were no expectations going into the season.

“I always get nervous coming back from the off-season, just trying to stay focused and use the nerves for good energy,” she said.

“I definitely am vocal, definitely try to lead by example as well.

“For me personally, I don’t have any expectations.

“I just really want to enjoy it and lift that intensity and show what great players we have in the area.”

Having spent the past few seasons at Glenthompson-Dunkeld, Sommerville was also looking forward to getting another taste of Hampden netball.

The Blues are coming off a 15-goal win against Portland and the Kangaroos are going into the clash with plenty of confidence.

“I actually don’t know too much about Warrnambool, I haven’t played Hampden for a few years now, so I am assuming it has all changed a little bit,” Sommerville said.

“I try not to focus on the opposition too much, I just focus on our game and what we want to achieve.

“There is a lot of talk but we just want to go out there and play really good, hard netball and give it all we’ve got.”