By ADEM SARICAOGLU
ESSENDON District Football League club Hillside hasn’t quite had the season of promise it had hoped for prior to round one.
Their senior team was demoted into the league’s third-tier competition half way through the year, which in part resulted in the sacking of coach Alan Ezard.
However, this is one football club that does not live or die just by how its seniors are travelling.
The Sharks have 13 junior teams competing across a number of EDFL divisions, and this season, 12 of them got to the finals with three picking up flags.
On the back of that success, four of its youngsters, including Nicholas Giarrizzo, Jordan Busuttil, Bailey Ryan and Tristan Duus, were all awarded their respective divisions’ best and fairest awards, while another four young Sharks finished runners up.
“When you look at it from the club’s perspective moving forward that’s an absolutely fantastic result in the EDFL,” club junior vice-president Rick Caffari said.
Caffari says the secret to the club’s successful junior program is the inclusiveness of the entire Sharks organisation.
“You’ve got to promote community (and) you’ve got to promote a culture within a club,” he said.
“Even though we’ve got several teams, at the end of the day, you walk into those clubrooms, you’re not representing the team, you’re representing the club. That’s the biggest thing.
“All the kids, although they may not know each other by name, they know each other by face and they’re a part of a family at the end of the day, the Sharks family.
“It might sound strange but it’s true.”
Such harmony among the different teams within the club has also been extended to the seniors.
“In the past it’s been perceived as a senior and junior club, two different clubs within the club,” Caffari said.
“We’ve tried to make a big effort to bridge that gap so that the kids are going to watch the seniors and the seniors are coming to watch the kids.
“It might not be AFL but we want these kids to look up to them because in five or six years’ time some of these kids will be playing with these guys.”
