EDFL: Aberfeldie coach Adam Marcon promises to bounce back in 2023
Aberfeldie coach Adam Marcon has declared his side’s grand final loss as an important lesson and believes there’s plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future.
Essendon
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The short-term pain of a grand final loss could be a long-term gain according to Aberfeldie coach Adam Marcon.
The Two Blues fell by 16 points in one of the Essendon District Football League’s greatest grand finals as the Premier Division decider went to extra time.
They led with just minutes remaining, but Strathmore was able to level the contest before carrying the momentum through to the two extra five-minute periods.
Despite the hurt he and his playing group were experiencing, Marcon is confident they’ll be back in 2023.
Eleven Aberfeldie players who took to the field were under the age of 21 signalling a bright future is on the cards at Clifton Park.
“It’s a bloody tough lesson to learn but if we stick fat we can put ourselves in this position again,” Marcon said.
“Sometimes losing is part of the experience and that way was really tough to take. I’m super proud of the boys and I told them that after the game.
“I thought we were in the better position but it just wasn’t to be. This year was a bit of a different one for Abers because we had some of our legends move on after Covid and we were lucky enough to be able to rebuild with the youth we had coming through.
“We had some injuries towards the end of the year which created some adversity but we kept pushing through that.
“The young guys will be better for the experience.”
Saturday marked the end of Marcon’s first season in charge of Abers.
They lost three games for the season and won the minor premiership.
Experienced heads Daniel Thompson, Nick Meese, Sam Cattapan and Tim Currie were again among the best players throughout the season.
VFL listed pair Lucas Rocci and Sam Paea showed plenty of promise and will only get better.
Meanwhile, Marcon himself looks set to go on again next season.
“I loved it (coaching for the first time),” he said.
“I’m really lucky to have some great assistants who do a terrific job of running things for me while I’m on the ground. It was definitely very challenging but I’ll take a lot of lessons away from this year.
“I’m looking forward to a bit of a break now though.”
Marcon said he expected to maintain a large part of the playing list for next season.
“We’ll sit down and have a look at where we’re at,” he said.
“I think we’ll have a very similar look, we had another good group of under 18s this year so hopefully they can come through and earn some opportunities.
“Our reserves are young as well which means we could see some players step up from there.”
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