St Joseph’s set to start season against North Shore

New St Joseph’s coach Ron Watt will start his tenure with the club against some familiar faces, with Joeys set to face North Shore in a stand-alone clash this weekend.

Central Highlands FNL, Great Final, Springbank V Gordon, at Mars Stadium, Ballarat, the coach Ron Watt, Gordon Eagles, Picture Yuri Kouzmin

New Joeys coach Ron Watt says it is going to be a “weird” feeling to coach against his old side on the weekend as he makes his return to the GFL.

Watt has not coached in the GFL since 1997 when he led North Shore to a fourth flag in five seasons at the helm, and will make his St Joseph’s coaching debut 26 years later against the Seagulls.

He said he was looking forward to seeing his old club, but excited to start the new journey at St Joseph’s.

“It’s not new, I have done it before when I went from Geelong West to North Shore, but it is a bit weird, it was a bit weird in the practice match at Windsor Park a couple of weeks ago,” he said.

“Looking at the blue and gold jumpers running around, there were so many years being used to working with them at North Shore, so it’s weird to go up against them.

GFL: South Barwon v St Joseph's. No 8 Josh Hovey for St Joseph's.

“In saying that, I’m extremely happy working with St Joseph’s, it’s a great list that I think can play some really good footy this year.”

The stand-alone game for the GFL will open the season, with the rest of the competition starting their campaigns on April 15.

Watt said it was beneficial to begin the season earlier than everyone else after a long pre-season.

“We were looking at a way to get our season started earlier, North Shore was really keen on it,” he said.

“It became quite an easy fit to bring the round 3 game forward to this weekend and put a bit of space in the rest of the season, it’s a good thing to not get a massive block of games.

“We’ve had a good pre-season with a couple of good hit outs, one being against North Shore.

“You always take note of the attitude and the general style of play, we understand that there was a number of players missing from that practice match and we’re not sure of their exact makeup.

“Their VFL-listed players will make a big difference to them, so we’ll take into account what we saw in that game but it’ll all depend on how they structure up.”

St Joseph’s will debut seven players on Saturday, including club juniors Olivier Northam, Max McLachlan, Hunter Lewis and Oscar Hocking, as well as new recruits Joey Chaplin, Ben Kamaric and Archer Dibsdale.

Originally published as St Joseph’s set to start season against North Shore