Reigning premier Dingley ‘itching’ for season to start
Matt Terich, Cameron Hanson, Jack Williams, Aaron Dunn, Aaron Hodges, Matt Edwards … with such a good list of recruits no wonder the Dingoes are eager for the ball to be bounced.
Southern
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Pre-season training numbers were outstanding.
Quality recruits had been signed.
Enthusiasm was high.
One practice match brought a narrow victory over Frankston YCW.
Then the coronavirus crisis hit, and in the seven weeks since the only contest Dingley and its new senior Danny Ades have played is a waiting game.
“One praccy, we got up by a point over YCW. Then it was curtains,’’ Ades was saying last Thursday.
“We played on a Sunday and I was all hyped up because the boys played well. Then that Sunday night was the PM’s announcement.
“After that it was mayhem trying to work out what we could and we couldn’t do. We put a lot of time and effort into managing training for groups of 10 initially, and by the time we got that sorted it was canned anyway.’’
Thumbs have been twiddled since.
Well, not quite. The club’s fitness co-ordinator drew up a training plan, based on body-strength exercises at home and running.
“There are about 20 to 25 of them (players) in my ear every day saying they’re keeping fit,’’ Ades, 31, said.
“They send me screenshots of their watches after a run! I’ll constantly get, ‘I’m running PBs and there’s no footy!’ ‘Fergs’ (Josh Ferguson) is a killer for that.’’
Ades has tried to keep his assistant coaches and team leaders engaged with exercises around drills, game plans and reviewing match footage from last season.
“That keeps me busy, because I’m starting to go a bit stir-crazy with the whole thing,’’ Ades said.
“The players who are really keen on their footy, they love staying involved, even with something as simple as that. They’re itching to go.’’
Ades believes the social aspect of the game is probably more important to the players than getting best-on-ground.
“I think if you were to ask every player here what they miss the most, it’s not so much running out on the field, it would be grabbing a meal here on a Thursday night and shooting the breeze with all their mates and escaping from work or home or wherever,’’ he said. “Hanging out with their mates for a few hours.’’
Ades said “any footy at all’’ would be a good outcome.
“In my mind, providing it’s all doable and feasible, a nine-game season, where you play everyone once, and then perhaps a finals series where its’ one-versus-four, two-versus-three and the winners into the granny, would be fine,’’ he said.
“Finding those 11 weeks that work, and then seeing how it will work with crowd numbers, that will be the hard part, because the clubs have to have revenue.’’
When Ades was appointed to take over from four-time premiership coach Shane Morwood after another Dingley flag last season, he couldn’t have imagined a pandemic would be the club’s biggest opponent in the first few months of the season.
The Dingoes believe they had everything in place for a strong season under Ades, who joined the club from Bonbeach in 2015.
In the years since he’s been a leading player in the Southern league, a big fellow who gets around the ground like a rover.
Since he’ll continue to play, Dingley has put in a strong support panel for him, with former league player Darren Kappler and Tony Lavars returning as assistant coaches and two-time SFNL medal winner Liam Wilson steering the reserves. Jarrod Best, new to the area but with an impressive football resume, will look after the Under 19s.
Brad Collins is serving as the director of football and as a mentor to Ades.
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The Dingoes have retained every player who figured in the grand final victory over Cheltenham, even veteran Troy Parker, who said after the match he was retiring.
Matt Morwood and Travis La Rocca were supposed to be going overseas, but the pandemic has kept them home. If Dingley plays, they’ll be on deck.
Matt Terich (Seaford), Cameron Hanson (St Kilda City), Jack Williams (Bonbeach), Aaron Dunn (Mt Eliza), Aaron Hodges (Old Mentonians) and Matt Edwards (Bendigo league) make up an excellent list of recruits.
The Dingoes also have four players on VFL books: Ferguson and Chris Horton-Milne at Sandringham, Lachie Lamble at Casey Demons and Kris Feehan at Frankston.
And if the VFL doesn’t get underway Frankston senior man and former AFL player Nathan Freeman will line up for his junior club.
Since his appointment Ades has been asked often if he feels the pressure of taking over from such a successful coach.
He doesn’t, because Morwood involved his assistants so much that “I feel like I was as much a part of the success we’ve had already’’.
He said it would be different if he was coming to the club as an outsider.
“Shane coached us like a unit. He was the boss but we were a coaching group,’’ Ades said.
As a playing coach he’ll have to take Morwood’s lead, trusting his team of assistants. Collins has impressed that upon him.
“Will Danny have to change? Yes, he will,’’ Collins said. “He’ll have to put a lot of faith in his support group, take on the same philosophy as Shane.’’
But before that football needs to get the all-clear to play.
Ades thinks Dingley can achieve more this year than just winning a practice match in March.