The Pacific Hotel Yamba Buccaneers will launch their season against Murwillumbah this weekend (22 April). The team’s preparations have been hampered due to the recent wet weather, but coach Adrian Miller said the side was eager to play. “We’ve been training since January so everyone is keen to finally start the year after a long off season,” he said. With a pre-season game called off and recent training sessions cancelled due to the weather the team is behind on their preparations, but Miller said they would work around that. “There’s no doubt the bad weather has pushed back our preparations, but there’s not much we can do about that,” Miller said. “We certainly won’t be using that as an excuse if we don’t play well on Saturday.” The Buccaneers will take on a Murwillumbah side who are an unknown quantity, after they re-joined the competition after sitting out 2016. “We don’t really know what we will be facing to be honest,” Miller said. “We don’t really know much about them at all but at the end of the day that won’t affect us too much.” Miller said the Buccaneers, who are fielding a number of new faces in 2017, would play their game regardless of the opposition. “We have a particular way we want to play the game and that won’t really change too much from week to week,” he said. “If you try to change your style to suit the opposition you run the risk of playing into their hands, so we will focus on what we want to do and try to get that right. “If we play the way we want to play we are confident we’ll have the edge.” The Buccaneers’ first home game of the season will be on May 6 against Evans River.