Wagga Tigers coach Troy Maiden has played down the expectation surrounding his team following a blistering start to the season.
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Tigers backed up an incredible off-season recruitment drive with an opening round 90-point victory over Leeton-Whitton.
They face a quick back-up as they prepare to tackle arch-rival Turvey Park in a standalone Good Friday game at Maher Oval on Friday.
Leeton-Whitton were full of praise for Wagga Tigers after the weekend but Maiden is not getting caught up in the early season hype surrounding his team, who only won two games last year.
"I'm not reading anything into it, to be honest," Maiden said.
"We've got plenty of work to do and plenty to improve on, even from the weekend's game.
"We're coming from a fair way back so we're not shying away from the fact we've got a lot of work to do to improve.
"Our aim is to be competitive against everyone we play against and we want to be hard to play against."
Tigers will be further boosted for Friday's clash with the return of Lahn Shepherd and Shaun Driscoll.
With no injuries last weekend, fitting two returning players into a team that won by 90 points will present a pleasant headache for Maiden.
"Both those guys will come in," he said.
"It's good to have everyone available."
Turvey Park will also enter Friday's clash with confidence after defeating Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes for the first time since 2011 in round one.
Maiden expects the Bulldogs to provide a serious test.
"Obviously they're fairly young but they've got some quality players. I look at their side and straight away I see Nathan Byrne, Jeremy Sykes, Mat Bailey, Clint Shields. They're all very, very good players," he said.
"They're going to be tough. They had a win on the weekend so they'll certainly be up and about. It's going to be a big test for us."
The game between Turvey Park and Tigers will be the first Good Friday fixture held in the Riverina League since 1995, when the Bulldogs travelled to Griffith to take on the Swans.
Maiden played for Turvey Park in that game, kicking three goals and was among the Bulldogs' best in their six-goal win, and is looking forward to seeing how the return to Good Friday football and netball goes.
"I think the boys are looking forward to it, they seem to be," he said.
"We haven't really talked a lot about it to be truthful, it's rolled around pretty quick.
"It's something a little bit different and hopefully it creates a bit of interest."
Games start at regular times with seniors at 2.10pm.
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