After a first round bye after the withdrawal of St Francis Xavier from the VAFA D3 competition the club has had an extra week to work on fitness, the game plan and getting to know all the new players. This week we are playing away against UHS-VU at Brens Oval (43 E1) which is a change from our original Round 2 game against Hawthorn.
UHS had a huge win last week against Powerhouse so we will be up against it in both grades to come away with the chocolates. Another plus side of the bye however was the ability for several of our coaches and players to make their way to Brens Oval and watch the Round 1 match. We feel we gained some important information from this trip and this has been communicated to the rest of the playing group.
We had 47 players training on Tuesday night and expect a few more to make it down tonight to hopefully break the 50+ barrier for only the second time under senior coach Russell Barnes. A real highlight of our preseason has been the solid numbers on the track with every session since Christmas having 30+ players working hard. This should show during the season with our increased fitness hopefully allowing us to run out games better than our opposition.
Another massive highlight for the preseason has been the arrival of over 20 new players to the club. The vast majority of these players have arrived from local EFL clubs with more than a handful coming from Park Orchards and another handful being new to the game. Many of these players are expected to play senior football this year as well as those who did not play last season. We have to make sure that as a club we make every single new player to the club feel welcome. Some new players to look out for in the seniors this year are;
| Club | Number | |
| Tim Cook (VC) | Bayswater via Alexandra | 8 |
| Steve Tibb | Returning | 34 |
| Andy La Marca | Returning | 27 |
| Michael Connolly | Returning | 44 |
| Marcus Whelan | East Ringwood | 13 |
| Ben Nucifora | Heathmont | 37 |
| Pat O’Leary | Park Orchards | 10 |
| Sam Eggleston | Park Orchards | 40 |
| Ben Ryan | Park Orchards | 17 |
Our first home game for the season is Round 3 when we are playing West Brunswick on ANZAC Day. There will be a ceremony held before both games with a minutes silence in commemoration. We will also be doing some fundraising for the RSL on this day as well. Hopefully we can see a large number of supporters coming to Brens Oval this weekend and to our Round 3 clash.