NORTHERN Inland Football’s new season continues to ramp up after a “hot” Acropolis Cup in Armidale last weekend to be followed by five first round FFA Cup games in Armidale and Tamworth on Sunday.
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NIF general manager Stephen Griffith was impressed by the standard of football served up at Doody Park in an annual tournament where the Armidale open and Under 19 teams finished up as Acropolis Cup winners.
“A few of the players were lit up like lobsters,” he said of a fine and sunny weekend.
“We forgot to stress on them the importance of applying sunscreen.”
Apart from that slight worry, the Cup weekend went off smoothly .
“The Tim Coates-coached Tamworth performed very well too,” he said of the NIF chairman.
‘They had a number of players unavailable because of cricket and other commitments but they played well. It was great that both the Under 19 and open Acropolis Cups went down to the final game. Tamworth needed to beat Armidale in the final game to win.”
Armidale won the open game 3-nil to win their seventh Acropolis Cup.
“Armidale went into the final game unbeaten .
“They were well coached and had the support of all four Armidale Premier League clubs too. That made a big difference.”
The Northern Tablelands side also demonstrated that the Inverell Joeys might be a force this year too, especially if the Guyra players register and play with them.
Griffith said the Acropolis Cup has become a good pre-season event for all NIF clubs.
“It went off very well, plenty of good
football was played.”
That all leads into this Sunday’s opening round of FFA Cup matches. In Armidale South Armidale and Inverell Joeys match up from 2pm while TAS tackle Tamworth FC from 4.30pm.
In Tamworth, North Companions and Demon Knights play their opening FFA Cup match at 3pm at Marius Street.
They do have a 1pm curtain raiser there as well for their second grade squad while North Armidale and Gunnedah match up in their FFA Cup match at Johnson Field, Tamworth from 2pm.