The men in orange will commence their promotion quest next season with a McEwen Reserve curtain-raiser on Saturday, March 18 against Boroondara Eagles.
Suns coach Craig Carley said his side would be intent on ridding the demons of last season by getting off to a good start.
“It’s quite a good fixture, four of our first five games are at home, so it’s really important we get off to good start,” Carley said.
“There’s some newly-promoted teams on there — last year we got in a bit of a rut in our first couple of games, so it’s really important we make our home ground a bit of a fortress and start well.“
The Suns will play their first three games of the season at home, before making the trek to Ballarat in round four for a clash with Ballarat City.
A host of emerging sides will feature in NPL3 next year, alongside some stalwarts of Victorian football.
Carley said his side was under no illusions as the difference in quality between the two leagues was minimal.
“I think every game is going to be important, it’s certainly going to be a tough league this year with no easy games, I personally don’t think there’s much difference from NPL2 to NPL3,” he said.
“Some of the teams coming up have huge budgets, Essendon Royals and Caroline Springs for example, they’re two teams that have been around for a very long time and will be looking to go up the NPL system next year.
“It’s going to be exciting, there’s some grounds we haven’t been to before and some we haven’t been to in a few years, we’re really looking forward to it and we can’t wait for the season to start now.”
Carley said the Suns’ pre-season was taking shape nicely and with a number of familiar faces back on board, excitement was building for their fresh start in the new year.
“It’s still early days, but the boys are doing a lot of fitness work, the strength and conditioning coach has come in and is doing a hell of a lot of work and the boys have all bought in to what we’re trying to do,” he said.
“Everyone has real enthusiasm to get the club back to where we believe it should be and the board is obviously helping with that too.
“They’ve given us all the tools we need to be able to achieve on the pitch.”
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