New Swan Callan Wellings out for half a year after surgery

Ballarat has been dealt a major blow ahead of the new season with one of their recruits out for most of the year.

Ballarat will head into the new season without one of their its headline recruits as the club looks to repeat its heroics of last year.

Former Collingwood VFL midfielder Callan Wellings, will be out for the first half of the Ballarat league season after recently undergoing surgery.

The Swans face Darley in the opening round of the season at Alfredton Recreation Reserve on Saturday.

“Cal has had a nose operation so he needs some time off the sport,” new Swans coach Chris Maple said.

“He’s headed overseas and will miss the first half of the season.”

Callan Wellings (right), playing for Collingwood in 2018, is out for half of the season for his new club the Ballarat Swans. Picture: Mark Dadswell

The injury is a major blow to the Swans who already have more than half of the team missing from last year’s finals series.

The Swans made the preliminary final after finishing second during the home-and-away season.

The team defeated Saturday’s rivals, the Devils, by one point in the first semi-final but was not able to beat Melton in week one or Sebastopol in week three to reach the grand final.

In the off-season, Maple joined, replacing Joe Carmody, after finishing his AFL coaching career at the Western Bulldogs.

Over 14 seasons, he coached the VFL team and was an assistant to the AFL team, helping the Bulldogs win the 2016 grand final.

“There has been massive change,” Maple said after taking over.

“We’ve lost quite a few, we’ve had three or so retire, we’ve had four or five move interstate. We would only have seven or eight of the 22 who played in that final (against Sebastopol) still at the club.

“Of the 22 players named (this week), 19 were Ballarat Football Club juniors.

“This is where the club wants to head and we think that is going to pay dividends for us, to focus heavily on our junior program and develop our juniors on the way through.”

But in the short term there might be some pain.

The Swans last year were the kings of winning the close games.

In games decided by under 10 points, they won seven out of 10.

Maple knows if this year is similar his team might not get the same record.

“They were probably lucky to finish where they did and they had a very old list,” he said.

“With a younger list we will have this year, whether we win those tight games would be a question to be asked with the lack of experience.”

Maple is expecting his team to be competitive, regardless of the talent on the park.

He’s spent the off-season trying to build the club’s standards, replicating those at Whitten Oval.

This includes how the team trains, plays, the game style and creating a football department who can compliment the team.

“Having younger players, they improve quick,” he said.

“That’s the area of growth that I see. The young players are really keen, they are enthusiastic, they train hard and they will improve really really quickly.

“While some people might think we’ve had to go backward to go forward that may not be the case.”

Maple said the focus has been on defence and transitioning from defence to attack, similar to how other teams counter punch in higher grades.

But he’s wary of Darley.

“I would imagine they would be pretty strong,” Maple said.

“I’m anticipating them to be one of the strongest top four teams in the competition.”

Josh Gibson, pictured in 2009, might not play for the Ballarat Swans this year after joining his former AFL club North Melbourne this season. Picture: Michael Klein.

The Swans coach said also almost ruled out Josh Gibson returning to the club.

Gibson last year kicked 14 goals in 12 games for the club, including six goals in his last three matches.

He said the former North Melbourne and Hawthorn player has not ended his career just yet and is keen to play but has plenty of commitments with his family, his work and his new role at the Kangaroos in the AFL.

Nothing has been finalised yet but Maple is 95 per cent sure Gibson is unlikely to play.

The team plays Darley at 2.15pm.