THE Horsham and District Football Netball League (HDFNL) has released its fixture for the 2022 season with the home and away season to begin on April 9.

The regular season will conclude on August 13 with finals scheduled to begin a week later - the grand final is set for September 10.

The HDFNL board was excited to see the 2022 season begin with all clubs set to play eight home games, as they welcome their loyal members and supporters back to country footy games.

Clubs have started their pre-season training and are following the return-to-train protocols and guidelines established by AFL Victoria and Netball Victoria.

Harrow-Balmoral senior football coach, Nick Pekin said everyone in the Southern Roos camp was buzzing in anticipation for a big round one clash against 2021 minor premier, Noradjuha-Quantong.

After not getting to play any finals football in either the 2020 or 2021 seasons, this will still be a grand final rematch from 2019, as both sides look to stamp their authority on the rest of the competition.

The Bombers finished as minor premiers last year, but the Southern Roos will be hoping they can bring home a win in the fierce rivalry to kick off the 2022 season.

“I never have any problems with any draw, that’s the cards we’ve been dealt, and we’ve just got to deal with it, I think it’s great that we play Noradjuha-Quantong first up at home,” Pekin said.

“The boys should get themselves cherry ripe (for the first game), we might have a couple missing but we always get them right by the end of the year.

“It’s always nice to win early games but it’s a long season if it weren’t to fall our way, you’ve got to be confident going into any game and you don’t really know what other sides look like until halfway through the season when you’ve played them all.”

Pekin said there were a few teams that had been bolstered by recruits and looked forward to coming up against those sides and testing his team.

“Edenhope have been recruiting well and will be a real rival game and Rup (Rupanyup) have also picked up a few … I’ve heard big things out of Kaniva too,” he said.

“There are a couple big games in terms of the first (Noradjuha-Quantong) and last (Kaniva-Leeor) of the season.”

The two-time premiership coach said he expected his side to be playing some good footy by the time round nine arrived and they matched up against Rupanyup.

After the Panthers dealt with an undermanned Harrow-Balmoral outfit by 72 points in their last outing, there were plenty of Southern Roo’s players waiting for an opportunity to return the favour.

“My oath (we are keen to play Rupanyup), I’m not going to sugar-coat it, there is a shitload of fire in the belly – they were up and about, we were looking forward to the finals when we were going to play them.

“The last couple years without a result and with the team we’ve had, knowing that a club’s time goes around cycles, we are getting some new recruits on board.”

Pekin said which home games would be at Harrow and Balmoral were yet to be decided, but the club was currently in the process of working through that.

“We want to utilise them (the new facilities) as much as possible, the volunteers and community members, it’s about the comradery and social interaction we are going to get each week,” he said.

“I think we are going to go two and two, two home games in a row at each venue to save moving all the stuff to a different place every week.”

The Southern Roos have undertaken four pre-season sessions prior to Christmas and will be ready to go as soon as April 9 rolls around.

With a number of exciting new recruits, they are hoping to go all the way and make it a three-peat.