Wlliamstown’s leaders Cameron Lockwood, Brett Goodes, Matthew Cravino and Ben Jolley. 78591 Picture JOE MASTROIANNI
By MICHAEL ESPOSITO
WILLIAMSTOWN will go into this year’s VFL season with a new captain, new leadership group, and new-look coaching panel, but the same burning desire to claim that elusive premiership.
But if any competition is difficult to predict, it’s the VFL, partly because of the significant turnover of personnel from season to season, and partly because of the requirement of affiliate clubs to play AFL-listed players.
“With us over the last three years you’re really not sure what your side’s going to be in Round One because of the alignment, but probably from our point of view, we’ve got a good crop from the TAC Cup this year and some of our second year players have stepped up a bit as well, so we’re pretty happy with what we think we’ll be able to get with our younger players this year,” coach Peter German said.
Williamstown usually had between seven and 12 VFL- listed players in its senior side last year, but the majority of them were in the elite bracket. Several of them, including former skipper Brett Johnson, Ben Davies, David Stretton, Matthew Grossman and emerging star Dane Rampe have departed the club, but the CVs of the club’s new recruits, particularly the more experienced ones, seem to suggest the Seagulls will have a team that, on paper at least, will again be legitimate premiership contenders.
“The guys that we’ve got are probably different players again to the losses of Johnson, Davies, Stretton, Rampe and Grossman,” German said.
“But I think what we’ve been able to do is at least add experience, because losing some of those guys, they had really good football experience, so we replaced them with the likes of (James) Wall, (Michael) Stockdale and (Jamie) McNamara.”
Ben Jolley has replaced Johnson as captain, while Cameron Lockwood, Matthew Cravino and Brett Goodes have been named vice-captains.
“Apart from not being the captain last year he was one of our leaders anyway,” German said of Jolley.
“Him and Brett Johnson last year worked really well together, so it was really just a natural progression of him taking the role.”
Goodes is the only vice-captain who played regular senior footy last year. Lockwood was sidelined with a hip injury while Cravino played most of the season in reserves, deservedly won a second successive A Todd medal, and was promoted to Williamstown’s first team during the finals series.
German admitted Cravino had exceeded his expectations.
“He’s an outstanding clubman of Williamstown and he’s played a lot of reserves footy, and I said to him a couple of times: ‘I‘ve just written you off, I don’t think you’ll be able to get a game’, but he’s hung in there and ended up playing in the grand final last year and he’s as fit as he’s been since I’ve been at the club.
“He could probably get triple the amount of money playing local footy but he’s loyal to Williamstown.”
Being a vice-captain does not necessarily mean automatic inclusion into the senior side.
German said the three deputies were club vice-captains, rather than team vice-captains.
But Lockwood is certainly planning on being a regular fixture in the first team, and made that clear when he spoke to Star two weeks ago.
“Cam is a really important player to our footy side,” German said.
“He adds that hardness and has a real strong defensive resolve about him, and he’s a leader in our backline. To have him back this year is going to be excellent.”
As for some of the younger recruits, German said Haydn Hector, Dale Hoghton and Damian Bujeja have been stand-outs during pre-season and in practice games.
He also said defender Stephen Witkowski, now in his second year at the club, has taken giant strides over pre-season.
