TWO new recruits will feature in Wagga City Wanderers' round one team that gets their CPL campaign underway in Canberra on Saturday.
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The Wanderers have enjoyed a positive pre-season, with a number of trial wins, and will look to carry that form into the season proper when they take on Canberra White Eagles in round one.
A part of that Wanderers team will be Morris Kadzola, with the Zimbabwean 29-year-old boasting professional experience across the world.
Kadzola will slot in as the replacement for Luke Stevens in number 10.
"He'll play 10 and be our key attacking player," Wanderers coach Dave Leonard said.
"We're stoked to have him on board. He's played professionally and will bring a lot to the club.
"He's very unassuming, he's there to help, there to give advice if they want it. We're just really stoked to have him in the club."
Another new player at Wanderers will be Hay's Jayden Kinces. He will slot in at right back.
"Just because we've got a really good mix in the two centre backs at the moment with height and strength," Leonard said.
"You could really play him there but he likes playing out wide because he drives out of that position, gives us really good drive forward, his work rate is really quite high and he'll only get better too because he hasn't had the greatest pre-season with COVID and not being that well.
"So he'll give us plenty of drive forward with his ability to get up and down the ground, which is really hard to find and just his strength on the ball, his vision and passing game, which is really important in soccer out wide."
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Canberra White Eagles were the Wanderers' first scalp last year, defeating them 4-2 in Canberra in round six. They went down 3-1 in the corresponding fixture at home later in the season.
Leonard said the Wanderers will travel to Canberra on Saturday with their sights set on victory.
"Absolutely a win is what we're aiming for and nothing less than that. We're going there to win," he said.
"We have to be (confident), going off the results that they've had. But we don't really know if they've played their full-strength side or their coach has brought in 18s or 23s and given them a bit of a run to see how they gel and mould, which a lot of teams do.
"So really until you get to play them in 90 minutes of footy, it's a bit of an unknown."
The Wanderers enjoyed pre-season wins over Albury City, Hanwood and Leeton United, before going down to NPL team Monaro Panthers 3-1 in the Australia Cup.
Leonard believes there is plenty to reasons to enter round one with confidence.
"Our mindset's definitely a positive one," he said.
"It's just about that consistency, if we can play at our best and we can play at that for 80 minutes of footy. You're never going to play it for 90, no team does, no matter how good you are, but if we can play high minutes of consistent footy then it's going to keep us in the game."
"We should be pretty much full-strength, it's just guys vying for some spots, a little bit of competition, which is healthy.
"So we're just fine tuning that and also during games, working out what's the best positions for players are. Even though we believe we've got it right, it's not always the case. Generally during the season a bit of shuffling goes on, whether that's just positional change or personnel change and we'll be no different."
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