By ADEM SARICAOGLU
TAYLORS Lakes coach Steve Burns is confident his Lions will remain a premiership contender in 2014.
The Division One Essendon District Football League club finished fourth before falling just five points short of victory in a knockout final against Tullamarine last season.
Despite his current concerns about pre-season numbers out on the training track, Burns remains confident there is still enough quality on his list to ensure the Lions will again be a contender this season.
“It’s probably, if anything, been our worst (pre-season) in the six years I’ve been senior coach,” Burns admitted.
“It’s still all right – we’re still averaging 33 or 34 a night which is still pretty good, but we’re normally used to having 50.
“But the pleasing thing for me is all our better players are training at the moment.
“Out of our best 20 or 22, probably 17 or 18 of them are training, which is good. It’s just the fringe players and the younger blokes coming up that haven’t fronted yet.”
Taylors Lakes was notably one of the division’s best defensive units in 2013.
The Lions only gave up triple figures on three occasions throughout the season – each time against the eventual grand finalists, Glenroy and the Northern Saints.
For Burns, the key area for improvement in 2014 will be inside the forward 50, where Mark Xuereb was the only dominant force for the Lions last season.
“Our forward line needs to be totally revamped and we need a forward line that’s capable of kicking goals, because our defence and midfield are as good as anybody else in the comp,” Burns said.
“We haven’t been able to recruit a key forward but we’ve got Jake De Sousa, Mark’s brother, back from Deer Park, which is handy for us.
“He’s a quality footballer who will come into our forward line and we’re going to mix a couple of things up and we’ve got Lachie Calder back as well, who missed most of last year with travelling and injury.
“To have those two in there will already make it better and we’re going to go back to some stuff we used to do in the past, which will hopefully make us more potent in that forward 50.”
Along with a few former Essendon Doutta Stars under-18s players, midfielder Jay Milford-Robertson has also made the move to Lionheart Reserve, coming across from the Southern Football League during the summer.
The Lions will begin their 2014 campaign on the road against Westmeadows in early April.
