Villa set to make improved showing

Football

Douglas Villa are determined to make a bold showing in Capital Football's premier second division competition this season.

That's the message from coach Troy Burling who believes he and assistant coach Nathan Cottle have the material for Douglas Villa to improve significantly on the eighth placing they achieved in 2012.

"We have enough depth in the side to do well, I'd like to think we'd finish mid-table or better," Burling said.

Reflecting on last season's campaign, Burling said Douglas Villa seemed to be batting injury problems all the way through and, consequently, lacked consistency in their play.

"We struggled to get the same team on the paddock for two games in a row and it's hard to get consistency when the combinations are changing all the time," he said.

"In the end we actually did well to keep away from the bottom of the table.".

Burling is mindful, however, that Douglas Villa are going into Saturday's 2013 opener against Western Suburbs at Endeavour Park without any match practice and against opposition who were relegated from Capital first division last year, so he is anticipating a tough slog.

"The preparation certainly hasn't been ideal but the enthusiasm at training has been good and hopefully we can still make a decent game of it," he said.

Burling, Michael Kempson, David De Lara-Bell, Ricky Riddell and Jarred Watt were all leading players in the Douglas Villa side last season and will be so again while interesting newcomers are Fred De Lara-Bell and Sean Jarvis.