By LIAM TWOMEY
ON THE eve of the Western Region Football League Division One season, the men who know the competition the best, the coaches, are divided on who they think will be the team to beat.
When asked to select their premiership favourite, the 10 Division One coaches were split between the WRFL’s three powerhouse clubs, Altona, Deer Park and Spotswood.
After taking a look at the off-seasons of all three teams, it’s easy to see why there is nothing separating the potent trio.
On the back of a premiership win, Altona strengthened its side by adding former AFL player Jayden Post.
After missing out on premiership success by just one point, Spotswood welcomed former Carlton rookie Murray Boyd.
While at Deer Park, the Lions unleashed a barrage of high calibre recruiting, including Heath Ayres, Shannon Broadbent and Marc Bullen, which saw them become a genuine premiership threat. Although the big three dominated the headlines throughout the off-season, there was no shortage of boom recruits at other WRFL clubs with former top-line AFL talent to join the competition including Brodie Moles (Hoppers Crossing), James Mulligan (Hoppers Crossing), Mitch Hahn (Sunshine) and Aaron Henneman (St Albans).
With the bounce of the ball for round one just days away, all 10 WRLF coaches gave their thoughts on the 2013 season.
Altona
Last year: Premier
Player watch: Jayden Post
“I still think we are out to earn some respect from a couple of teams in the competition who I think still don’t rate us, to be honest. That is certainly a focal point for us as far as the way we prepare and the way we will play every game.”
Anthony Eames
Spotswood
Last year: Runner-up
Player watch: Murray Boyd
“Last year’s grand-final is one of those ones that we haven’t discussed formally. We have put that behind us and we are moving forward with a clean slate this year. On an individual level, I’m sure a lot of the guys will use that as a driving force to make sure they get everything out of themselves.”
Chris O’Keefe
Hoppers Crossing
Last year: Third
Player watch: Brodie Moles
“You need to improve every year and I would like to think that we have improved again. It’s a long season and so many things will come into it. For us, it will just be a matter of hitting our straps at the right time.”
David Mitchell
Port Melbourne
Last year: Fourth
Player watch: Ricky Newton
“We thought we needed to bring a bit more leg speed into our side during the off-season to break the lines. We have recruited at least three guys who will bring that to us this year.”
Ben Burke
Sunshine
Last year: Fifth
Player watch: Mitch Hahn
“Everybody at the club is expecting to play finals. We haven’t spoken about specific ladder positions and wins and losses. Certainly we expect to play finals and be a more than competitive side.”
Brett Jacobs
Deer Park
Last year: Sixth
Player watch: Heath Ayres
“Internally we have some high expectations and they will stay within the footy group. We are definitely looking to play finals. Finishing sixth last year, we feel like we bat pretty deep and will be able to go further into September.”
Marc Bullen
St Albans
Last year: Seventh
Player watch: Aaron Henneman
“We needed to recruit. That was obvious. Our list wasn’t strong enough because we had a fair few exit the year before. We decided to use last year as a year where we played a few more of our kids and we gave people opportunities.”
Ian Denny
Albion
Last year: Eighth
Player watch: Tim Taylor
“We have a very similar group to last year. This time 12 months ago we had lost a lot of players so having that similar group is a positive. We probably haven’t added as many as we would have liked to but … we are in a position to improve significantly.”
Mark Greenshields
North Footscray
Last year: Ninth
Player watch: Ronnie Burns
“It is pretty hard to compete with some of the figures floating around these days so we are just doing what we can do with the money that we have got. I’ll wait until we have played everyone once and then have a better idea from there.”
John Barnes
Yarraville-Seddon
Last year: Division 2 Premier
Player watch: Ben Stretton
“I think if we do just survive it will still make things tough the year after. When we recruited last year there was the lure of a flag there, whereas this year it is the opposite. We need to show enough this year that finals football is not that far away.”
David Connell
