St Mary’s coach Jack Bianchin discusses the Burras’ preparations and expectations

After struggling last season, St Mary’s is aiming to play a more attacking brand of football and reignite its finals hopes under new coach Jack Bianchin in 2025.

Rory Hanlon celebrates a goal for St Mary's. Picture: Andy Brownbill

St Mary’s will take a more attacking approach this season as it looks to return to NFNL Division 2 finals.

A final round loss to Thomastown saw the Burras slip to sixth and miss finals by 0.59 per cent with coach Fabian Carelli departing in the aftermath and best-and-fairest winner Jack Bianchin taking the reins.

The club ranked seventh in points for last season and only topped 80 points in a game three times.

Bianchin is looking for quicker ball movement from his young squad to try and reignite the club’s attack, having been the third-highest scoring team in 2023 on the way to a preliminary final appearance.

“Defensively we weren’t too bad last year but we want to be kicking 80 most weeks to have a good chance of winning,” Bianchin said.

Josh Carelli in action for St Mary's. Picture: Andy Brownbill

“We’re quite young and quite fast, so if we can get the ball to the outside that will suit us a bit more. Get it and go and hit the scoreboard more often.

“It’s about consistency for us, last year our best was good enough but our worst was really bad.

“We beat South Morang last year and lost to Watsonia by eight goals, it’s a massive difference.”

Making Bianchin’s aim a little harder, leading goalkicker Jeremiah Antypas (32 goals) hasn’t returned.

Jack Cicitta booted 24 majors in just 13 appearances to be the only other Burra in the top 50 goalkickers.

However, return to full fitness of newly-appointed club captain Tane Cotter, a full pre-season from Curtis Howden-Crhak and full-time availability to Northern Knights talents Josh Carelli, Ty Kitchell and Will Dean will be a significant boost.

“At this stage Jeremiah isn’t playing, he’s obviously kicked 70-80 goals the last two years so it’s a big void,” Bianchin said.

“We’re not going to have one guy to fill that, we need four or five guys to stand up and share the load, we’re going to be looking for our midfielders to kick goals.

St Mary's will be without Jeremiah Antypas this season. Picture: Andy Brownbill

“Huon MacGibbon will go forward a bit, he’s a great size and a presence for us, Jake Dambrauskas will go deep, Curtis only played a couple of games last year but has had a great pre-season and Jack Cicotta I think is capable of getting into the 40 (goal) range.”

St Mary’s is one of the few clubs to secure fresh ex-AFL talent this season with former Carlton defender Dominic Akuei signing on.

The club has also secured veteran backman Matt Morrison from Bundoora, while Mitch Green has departed for Eltham.

Bianchin said having the likes of Carelli, Kitchell and Dean as well as Cotter and Joseph Maggio more often would be like new recruits as well.

“Ty Kitchell is the one (who’s impressed me), fresh out of the Knights last year,” he said.

“He was probably best on (against Epping), he’s terrific in tight, a great size and has clean hands, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what he can do in a full season of senior football.

“They’re going to be massive ins, we expect Josh, Will and Ty to all be in our best 22 every week.

“It’s great to have Tane back, we’ve named him captain, and he’s had a full pre-season after struggling with an ankle last year before he left overseas.

“Dom will be excellent too, we’ll have him Round 1 and 2, we’ve been lucky with the Essendon (VFL) byes and we’re looking forward to seeing what he can do.

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“So it doesn’t look like we’ve got a whole lot of new recruits but we’ll still have eight or nine new faces from Round 18 last year.”

St Mary’s ramped up its pre-season preparations on Saturday with a practice match against Division 3 club Epping.

The Burras will then play an intra-club on March 15 before a final hitout against Essendon District Division 1 club Craigieburn.

They will kick off the 2025 campaign at Whatmough Park against Watsonia on April 5.

Panton Hill, Macleod and Whittlesea follow in a testing opening month.