GOATACRE club captain Sam Parish is relishing the chance to begin the new season at home after their opening fixture away at Keynsham was washed out.

Saturday’s game in Somerset was called off last Friday night due to heavy rain, meaning Goatacre will now begin their first season in Premier Two at home to Westbury and District tomorrow.

“It was not a good way to start really, obviously everyone was raring to go but the rain just got in the way,” Parish said.

“But the positive thing is that we are now able to start our season at home, which is good for us because it is always nice to play at home early on.

“Now we need to make sure we get off to a good start.”

The wicketkeeper is pleased to be playing a team like Westbury in their opening match, as they have been regulars in the league for a number of years.

“Westbury have been in the league a while and are pretty consistent performers, so this game will give us a real taste of what the league is all about.

“That is what we need at this stage, although I am not sure how much of their side they have changed over the winter.

“It will hard work I am sure, because if we do get the game on we will be playing on a very green pitch which will be difficult to bat on, but I think Craig Gibbens and Kevin Iles will be looking forward to having a bowl.”

The Goatacre Lane pitch is still very wet following weeks of rain, but if tomorrow’s game does go ahead Parish believes his side will not be too short of practice.

“The ground is very wet at the moment because of the rain which has fallen all week, but we will just have to wait and see,” he said.

“We have managed to get in a fair bit of practice because our game last weekend was not called off until the Friday night, so we were having a net then anyway because of the chance we may have been playing the following day.

“We were not able to get onto the square so we did a bit on the artificial turf we have, and we did the same for our net on Tuesday night, so we should be okay.”