The recent Southern annual meeting confirmed Fridge's second year of his contract to lead the side in the ASB Premiership, which starts in September.
Canterbury has already started preparations by appointing German coach Willie Gerdsen, who holds the Uefa A level coaching licence and a New Zealand level 3 coaching licence, and is a member of the German football coaches federation.
Gerdsen has already strengthened his squad with the import of Gary Ogilvie, a professional midfielder from the Conference League, who also captained the English Universities team.
Southern coach Fridge has had less good news in that at least four of last year's regular players will not be available for the summer season.
Striker Tom Jackson will finish his winter season with Caversham before heading north to Wellington, Mosgiel's Eder Franchini is heading for Auckland, Roslyn's Cam Attwood has finished his Otago studies, and Taylor McCormack is off to Europe.
So, the pressure is on Fridge to balance the books, player-wise, and possibly convince some university and other players to try for a place in Southern's ranks, rather than head away.
''I was approached by a young German player, about playing for Southern, but as soon as he found out that we do not pay players, he headed elsewhere, and is now in Scotland trialling there for a couple of professional sides,'' Fridge said.
''We do need fresh players for the coming summer season, and while I do not want to upset the present winter competition in Dunedin, players should realise that there will be opportunities to play in the ASB Premiership in summer.''
Dunedin Technical has the bye this weekend, and will relish the opportunity to prepare for its Chatham Cup quarterfinal against Mangere at the Caledonian Ground on August 8.
Northern coach Murray Devereux has again had defections as Chris Bell, Emmett McLarren, Andy Welford and Jonty Ashworth are unavailable to play against Mosgiel today.
''I've rarely been able to field the same team this season,'' Devereux said.
''But we do have Craig Wilkinson, striker Dave Henderson and Adam Harris back, and hope to repeat the performance that had us compete well with Caversham for most of our last match.''
Mosgiel will welcome the chance to regain earlier good form.
It is hard to believe that after ten rounds, Mosgiel had conceded only 11 goals, before leaking 17 goals in the next two games.
League leader Caversham plays the University side that earlier knocked coach Tim Horner's team out of the Chatham Cup, and no doubt Caversham fans will be looking for revenge.
The tightest match should be at Sunnyvale between mid-table Green Island and Roslyn-Wakari, who are neck and neck in the FPL with only two points separating them.
Green Island has two games in hand and will be hoping to leapfrog its rival.
