Ogilvy's Hawks raring to take flight in season opener

Having our final two pre-season games cancelled wasn't the ideal preparation, but it's left us hungry for our season opener in Adelaide this weekend.

The match against New Zealand being cancelled was probably a little easier to take because we got a couple of days' notice.

With the Breakers not being able to travel up to Wollongong, it was worse for them than us. And they obviously had a few guys who were sick.

The Saturday situation was really hard.

We went and did our shoot-around beforehand, and not only was the game cancelled, but we were put in isolation - it really tested a few of the guys.

We were excited about the rivalry match with Sydney.

There's been so much hype, whether it's fake or not for that rivalry, so to not only have the game called off, but to go and sit in our houses by ourselves for a full day was frustrating.

Everyone's going to go through their struggles, each team has going to have their own thing, but coach Goorjian is really focused on making sure everyone understands that COVID is still about.

We thought we were past it last year, but it's not, so we've got to roll with the punches again.

However, there is a silver lining: we're keen to go out and really show what we can do.

I think the disappointment of not being able to play in front of our home fans was massive, but to be able to go out and start our season on the right note has everyone focused this week.

This story first appeared on the Illawarra Mercury.