Mater Dei Catholic College and Kildare Catholic College will go head-to-head in round one of the Carroll Cup tomorrow night

The two heavyweights will do battle in round one of the competition on Wednesday night and Mater Dei coach Nathan Irvine is predicting a tough battle between the two sides.

"Yeah it's very tough to hit them first up," Irvine said.

"But you've got to play them at some stage, so it might as well be tomorrow."

Irvine has been impressed with his side's build up to the upcoming competition, with their preparation for this year's campaign starting in term four last year.

"It's been pretty good," he said.

"We were a bit disappointed in our performances last year, so we had a bit of fitness work at the end of term four last year and a few sessions in the morning before school in term one.

"We also had a practice match against Marist College in Canberra in March which gave us a bit of a gage where we were at and what we needed to work on.

"Unfortunately with it being the first day of school I won't have seen the boys for three weeks, but I'm sort of relying on them doing the work with their club teams at the moment."

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Headlining the Mater Dei squad is captain Lewis Pulver while other notable players include fellow Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes trio Jack Warden, Beau Edmunds and Flynn Collins.

Irvine also said the competition would provide a good opportunity for students who don't necessarily have an Australian Rules background to have a crack.

"We are looking at a couple of guys who aren't necessarily Aussie Rules players who will get their chance to play through the competition," he said.

"One of those being Angus Lourey who plays for the Heat in the basketball and he will likely start in the ruck for us tomorrow night.

"He played a bit of junior football but probably hasn't played much in the last couple of years.

"Then McKinley Hamblin who was our Hardy Shield captain will be in our team as well."

While hoping to grab their first title since 2016, Irvine acknowledged they would face some stiff competition if they wanted to be victorious.

"You expect Kildare as the reigning champs to be strong again," he said.

"Then TRAC and as we saw last year Wagga High certainly have some very good players and Kooringal also.

"It should be a really even competition and hopefully we are up to the standard."

Kildare and Mater Dei will do battle at 7.30pm at Robertson Oval while The Riverina Anglican College and Wagga High will do battle at 6pm.

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