EFNL 2024: New Mooroolbark coach Ben Wheat’s plan to overcome loss of stars

Mooroolbark has waved goodbye to a dual league medallist and a powerhouse ruckman this off-season – but new coach Ben Wheat is confident his club can offset their loss.

Dual league medallist Austin Smith has left Mooroolbark. Picture: Field of View Photography

Mooroolbark has lost some stars this off-season – but the new coach is confident his club has a plan to offset their departures.

Recently appointed Mustangs coach Ben Wheat takes the reins as dual Eastern league Division 1 best and fairest Austin Smith and powerhouse ruckman Ryley Monkhorst exit Heights Reserve.

Smith, who won the league’s Division 1 medal in 2021 and 2023, has returned to Yarra Glen while Monkhorst is back at Woori Yallock. Meanwhile, decorated midfielder James McManus has joined Division 4 club Chirnside Park.

While under no illusions about the talent exiting the club, a tight-lipped Wheat said the Mustangs might hold some recruiting aces in addressing their loss.

“You’re going to lose some every year – I don’t think there’d be a club in the EFNL that hasn’t lost some,” Wheat said.

“‘Oz’ (Smith) has got a massive reputation with a couple of league best and fairests – that’s hard to replace, but we think we will.

“It’s not ideal, we would’ve loved to have kept them, but we wish them all the best.”

Wheat succeeds the long-serving Bret Lavars as senior coach following the Mustangs’ sixth-placed, 9-9 finish to the home-and-away season.

The incoming mentor served as assistant under Lavars some years ago, and his son also plays junior football at the club.

He said the list’s “upside” made the Mooroolbark job an attractive prospect.

“Just knowing the list and knowing what’s coming through from underneath, it’s a pretty promising list,” Wheat said, who also served as an assistant coach at Montrose alongside experience at VFL club Williamstown and the Eastern Ranges.

“They maybe underachieved a little bit this year just through a slow start, but I think there’s lots of upside to the players they’ve got and the players coming through.

“The list definitely ticked a lot of boxes for me.”

The Mustangs have already made some signings, headlined by Josh Neal crossing from Woori Yallock where the forward kicked more than 100 goals across the past three seasons – including 29 in 17 matches this year.

“(Josh) is an exciting forward, takes a great mark and good on the ground – a really hard match-up and he hits the scoreboard pretty heavily,” Wheat said.

“At 27 years old he’s ideal for us – we felt we needed to bring a couple of those in to complement our young guys.”

He’s joined by brother and ex-Mooroolbark junior Jacob, touted as a running midfielder.

But there could be more recruits on the way.

“I think forward of the footy is pretty important – we’d like to score a bit more and also (add) some marking power down there,” Wheat said.

“Our ground’s quite big, so we’d like some aerobic forwards who can get up and down the ground pretty well.

“You can never have enough good midfielders either, can you? So, we’d like to add another mid.

“We feel like we’re pretty close to ticking those boxes now.”

EFNL 2024: Mooroolbark sings the song after its upset win over Beaconsfield this season. Picture: Davis Harrigan

While the new coach stopped short of declaring any outlandish expectations for the season ahead, he said his charges must simply roll their sleeves up in pursuit of improvement.

“We’d like to grow,” Wheat said.

“The long-range view is we’d like to play a final or so, but we know there’s a lot of work to go before we can make those expectations ... it’s just going to be off the back of hard work and getting a really good buy-in from the whole squad.”