AFL Victoria Community Championships: EFL names star-studded squad for interleague clash against Geelong

THE Eastern Football League is set to name a star-studded team for this year’s interleague clash against Geelong, with coach Steve Cochrane calling it “one of our strongest squads” in many years.

Steve Cochrane will coach the EFL for the first time. Picture: Lawrence Pinder

THERE are stars everywhere you look.

The Eastern Football League’s interleague squad is filled with Chandler medallists, premiership players, best and fairest winners, hard-at-it midfielders, champion forwards and reliable defenders.

First-year coach Steve Cochrane has called it “one of our strongest squads we’ve been able to put on the park for some time”.

But it needed to be coming up against the powerful Geelong Football League, which has owned representative football for the majority of this decade.

Geelong will be striving to hold the No.1 ranking for the sixth consecutive year when it meets Eastern in the AFL Victoria Community Championships fixture on Saturday at Etihad Stadium.

GFL interleague squad announced

Geelong and Eastern football leagues to play at Etihad Stadium

Leigh Williams was best afield for the EFL last year. Picture: Stuart Milligan

The EFL named a 26-player squad prior to Round 1 — a move made in an attempt to create team unity — it hopes will dethrone Geelong.

“I think previous years they’ve gone (with) larger squads ... we went with a smaller squad and targeted the guys we felt would do the job for us,” first-year coach Steve Cochrane said.

“We’re going to pick a side that can run and more importantly tackle and play contested footy as well, which is really EFL’s brand.”

Just under half of the team that pipped Essendon District last year was named in the squad, with Jake Best, Leigh Williams, Matt Aver, Stuart Hill, Chris Annakis, Jayden Van Unen, Lachlan McDonald and Damian Garner returning to represent the league.

Proven big-game performers Kyle Martin, Tom Schneider, Lachlan Johns, Rennie Gilchrist, Matt Jones and Jackson Sketcher also headline the squad, which will be finalised on Friday.

“Don’t want to be disrespectful to other teams but I know I was assistant coach last year and a number of these players weren’t available,” Cochrane said.

“They’re available this year so I’m hoping, the thing we have got to do is come together as a group, tight-knit group, as quickly as possible and implement a certain type of gamestyle.”

The game starts at 4.20pm and will be played as a curtain raiser to the Collingwood and St Kilda game.