Weston Bears primed for El Clasicoal derby against Maitland Magpies

However, prepare has taken on a somewhat different meaning for coach Leo Bertos and his squad as they struggle to find dry surfaces to practice on and contemplate a backlog of four postponed games from their opening five fixtures.

If the El Clasicoal beats the odds of another washout, the Bears will have three games in six days with an Australia Cup game away against Swansea on Tuesday night (April 12) and a Good Friday round-two catch-up fixture against Lambton Jaffas at Rockwell Automation Park.

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"It will go from one extreme of having no games to three games in a week scenario and if the weather breaks it will be busy like that for the next few weeks as we catch up games and hopefully continue in the Australia Cup," Bertos said this week

"That sort of momentum can be good, but it can be difficult if you start to get some injuries from playing that many games in such a short space of time."

There are no complaints from Bertos or the Bears camp, just an acknowledgement of the task ahead and the need to be flexible to cope with the unexpected.

"We've had some rough weather, we haven't seen weather like that for a long time, but you look further north and see people who are a lot worse off, so in some ways we are very fortunate," he said.

The Bears only game this season has been a 5-0 smashing of Cooks Hill United in round three, but Bertos is not reading too much into that form firstly because it is now three weeks ago and he suspects Cooks Hill had expended a lot of themselves the week before in their 0-all draw with Maitland.

Bertos said the stop, start nature of the year had been hard for players to maintain a level of mental as well as physical preparation.

But he said there were no problems in motivating players for Saturday's El Clasicoal Derby.

"The big derby is special for both clubs and the players," he said. "Obvioulsy for both teams it would have been nice to have a couple of games underneath to be ready but we will just have to go into it hoping everyone is still fit and healthy.

"It's a bit of a challenge as you kind of know each other so well, but we've only had one or two games so it's hard to gauge what each other are going to do.

"It will be a case of figuring out things as you go once the game starts."

One of the key figures in the game will be new Dutch striker Moustafa Mohammad and Maitland will face a handful in keeping him in check.

Maitland will also need to be on the lookout for former Magpie Tommy Duggan who has been creative up front working with Mohammad, Chris Hurley, Aaron Niyonkuru and Cooper Buswell.

The Magpies have a catch-up game on Tuesday night against Adamstown at Cooks Square Park with kick off at 6pm.

Kick off is Saturday's El Clasicoal is at 3pm.