BENDIGO City FC rounded out an impressive pre-season campaign with a 5-3 victory over Somerville Eagles at Epsom Huntly Recreation Reserve on Saturday.
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As they have done often during their practice matches over the last two months, City accounted for a team in a higher grade of the Men's State League competition, with the Eagles lining up in MSL 4 South this season.
Bendigo City, which is fielding a senior team for the first time since 2017 this year, will kick off an exciting new era for the club in MSL 5 West.
A week after accounting for another State League 4 team Gisborne in a gruelling encounter at Epsom, coach Greg Thomas' squad followed up with an impressive two-goal win.
A commanding win on home turf has left City well prepared and confident ahead of their MSL season opener against Maidstone United on March 19 at Strathfieldsaye.
Playing coach Thomas could not be happier with his team lead-up to round one, which has included three wins from their last four games, with the only blemish an extra time loss in their Australia Cup fixture against Watsonia Heights.
"It's been a slow build up, getting a whole new squad together, but it's all coming together at the right time," he said.
"We have a fair bit of confidence rolling in to the first game of the season.
"It has been spoken about a bit, what these state league divisions are like. It's a bit of an unknown for us.
"We can only turn up and play who's in front of us, but getting wins against state league 4 teams is a real positive."
City had five individual scores, with Luke Burns, Sam Farr, Ruben White, Sam Pitson and Lewis Merriman all finding the back of the net.
They led for the bulk of the match, going 1-nil up early before Somerville equalised.
City again led 2-1 and later 3-1 before both sides added two more goals.
Thomas said a pleasing aspect of the win was giving a few of the club's talented juniors a run late in the game.
"It was a good time to experiment and I was a bit weary of looking after a few of the boys with a few niggles," he said.
"The scoreline could perhaps have been a touch bigger, but they were tough conditions with the rain and wind.
"But we did control most of the game to be fair."
The club is continuing to sweat on the results of a scan on skipper Aidan Lane's knee.
The 22-year-old injured his knee in the previous weekend's practice match against Gisborne and was able to have a scan in Melbourne on Sunday.
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