Krakens are on a roll ahead of National Shield opening group tie
The Krakens and the Greens face north-east opposition on Saturday on cup and league business respectively.
The Caithness women’s side hit the road to play Peterhead in the opening tie of their qualifying group in the National Shield.
Mike Flavell’s squad are on a roll, having followed up their lifting of the National Plate at Murrayfield last season with clinching Caley North Region League 2 last month.
The shield, the second-tier national knockout tournament, involves regional League Division 1 sides and the winners of regional League 2s.
The Krakens have previously twice faced Peterhead on the road, losing both games. But the latter have had an indifferent league campaign, winning just one of their seven fixtures in Caley North 1, a double-header versus Craig Dunain.
Flavell said: “We don’t know very much about them, other than they finished second bottom in their league.
“We’re pretty excited about starting out on another cup campaign and last week we had a really good training session with good numbers, so we’re keen to give it a real go.”
Flavell said that not defending the third-tier plate takes a bit of heat off his team.
“As defending champions, we would be among the favourites to win it so it does take a bit of pressure off us,” he said.
Personnel-wise, the only regular missing is scrum-half Tamzin Rosie, who is on Caledonia under-18 regional duty. Aileen Simmonite, who has been playing hooker, is set to take over the number nine shirt.
Flavell said: “Otherwise, we should be at full strength.
“If we manage to beat Peterhead, it would build momentum going into our home game versus Oban Lorne and then our trip to play Howe of Fife.”
The top two in the groups qualify for the quarter-finals.
The Greens host Ellon in a match rearranged from January 11 when it was scuppered by a frost-bound pitch.
The hosts will be missing two key players, skipper and number eight Cole Wilson and full-back Scott Webster. Both had arranged to go to Sunday’s Scotland/Ireland match before the club game was rescheduled.
Head coach Cameron Boyd has no issues with the pair’s unavailability.
“It was meant to be a free week and they had organised to be in Edinburgh for the weekend,” he said.
“I have no problem with that at all, especially when you think back to last season when teams were cancelling matches with us up here left, right and centre after our guys had changed their work and personal schedules to make themselves available.”
Otherwise, with the Seconds not in action, Boyd has a full squad to choose from, apart from long-term casualties Charlie Quinn, Cameron Ryder and Reece Coghill.
The coach believes the Greens will face a stern test to defend their unbeaten home league record.
“Ellon have been going really well this season and are one of our sides in with a chance of the title and claiming one of the two promotion play-off places,” he said.
“We have had some really good performances at home this season and we need to get ourselves up for this game and, as I’ve said before, make Millbank a pretty horrible place for teams to come to.
“Ellon are a really tough test for us but, if we keep executing the way we want to play, we’ve got nothing to fear.”
The match kicks off at 2pm.