SFNL 2024: Division 1 club-by-club season preview
Cheltenham goes in as favourites but the chasing pack is hungry ahead of the Southern league’s Division 1 season. Here’s how every club shapes up for 2024.
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The Southern league Division 1 season shapes as one of the best yet, and it kicks off next week.
All teams have recruited well and go in with high hopes.
Here is everything you need to know for season 2024 ...
BENTLEIGH
LAST YEAR: Seventh — 5-13
COACH: Kristian Bardsley (second season)
CAPTAINS: Ben Cooper, Nicholas Bufalo
IN: Matt O’Sullivan (St Kilda City), Nathan Dowsett (Old Haileybury), Castan Racunica (Old Haileybury)
OUT: Angus Hanrahan, Luke Di Ciero, Ash Di Ciero
PLAYER TO WATCH:
Dimitri Fasoulis
WHAT THE CLUB SAYS:
“We’ll still be young, we’ll be fit and we’ll back ourselves to run,” Bardsley said.
“Our biggest strength will be the development of our younger players who got more game time last year.
“Those guys will be more consistent senior footballers having another year under their belt, getting more consistency in how they play and how they prepare.
“When you get a lot of young kids you go high and low but we think we’ll be more balanced this year across the board.
“I think a lot of our guys have had the best pre-season they’ve ever had ... we’re looking at a wholistic improvement, we’re expecting everyone to improve.”
CHELTENHAM
LAST YEAR: Premiers — 19-2
COACH: Justin Pickering (new)
CAPTAIN: Jack Worrell
IN: Jack Lonie (Seaford), Sam Dunell (Bonbeach), Jacob Edwards (North Melbourne), Harry Edwards (Mordialloc)
OUT: Josh Fox (East Ringwood)
PLAYER TO WATCH:
Josh Lai
WHAT THE CLUB SAYS:
“There’s no doubt the expectation is there, but everyone puts those names up and thinks it’s a forgone conclusion,” Pickering said.
“I think many smart people know you can have a team on paper and then a team that plays well.
“The expectations are there and I embrace that, we fully expect to win a lot of games and we expect to be competitive in September – if we weren’t thinking that way we would be going down the wrong path.
“We have a lot of 20, 21 year olds, 17-year-olds playing practice games, we’re building for the next three to four years.
“We love the expectation, hopefully we live up to it, the ultimate goal is to hold that trophy up again.”
CHELSEA HEIGHTS
LAST YEAR: Ninth — 3-15
COACH: Nathan Robinson (second season)
CAPTAIN: TBC
IN: Kieran Ellis (Albury), Jack Wilson (Warrack), Erish Uthayakumar (Euroa), Jake Thornell (Alberton), Troy Van Dyke (Foster), Jesse Murphy (Langwarrin), Shaun Chaseling (returning), Will McIntosh (Euroa), Scott Allott (Black Rock)
OUT: Cody Stackelberg (Aspley), Matt Wilson (Black Rock)
PLAYER TO WATCH:
Erish Uthayakumar
WHAT THE CLUB SAYS:
“Hopefully everyone stays fit, if everyone stays fit and we can bank some early wins, we would like to improve and push towards that top five,” Operations manager Lee Thwaites said.
“A fully fit list would be the no.1 box to tick and see where that lands us because local footy is tricky if you don’t have your best team out there.
“Robbo (Nathan Robinson) has got the boys as fit as they’ve ever been which we lacked last year, we used to get run over in last quarters pretty convincingly.
“If we can weather those storms a bit better and run out games, then we’d like to think we can go the distance in more games.”
CRANBOURNE
LAST YEAR: Runner up — 15-6
COACH: Steve O’Brien (seventh season)
CAPTAINS: Zak Roscoe, Dylan Cavalot
IN: Tyler Finn (Noble Park), Josh Cochrane (St Kilda City), Dillan Bass (Cora Lynn)
OUT: Cam Pola (Upper Ferntree Gully), Ben Pola (Emerald), Anthony Fischer (Emerald), Christopher Ramac (Emerald), Kirk Dickson (Rosebud), Marc Holt (Lang Lang)
PLAYER TO WATCH:
Jarryd Barker
WHAT THE CLUB SAYS:
“We’ll be looking to compete again, that’s what we do,” O’Brien said.
“There’s been a bit of player movement but that’s an opportunity for us to continue blooding the young blokes, we’ve always done that and we’ll continue to do that.
“While we’re doing that, we’ve still got a great core of senior players we expect to compete again.
“You can never replace Marc Holt, it’s as simple as that, and when you’ve had the luxury of having Holty in your forward line for 20 years or so, you can get away with some things where you just bang the ball in there and let him do the rest.
“We’ve got to be a bit smarter with our entry this year.”
DINGLEY
LAST YEAR: Semi finalist — 12-7
COACH: Zach Horsley (second season)
CAPTAIN: Jackson Peet
IN: Caleb Lewis (St Bede’s Mentone), Michael Lewis (St Bede’s Mentone), Kai Stretton (St Bede’s Mentone), Jaydon Rodwell (Beaumaris), Jake Johnson (Beaumaris), Andrew Godfrey (Upper Ferntree Gully), Trent Dennis-Lane (Bonbeach), Arryn Siposs (Philadelphia Eagles NFL)
OUT:
PLAYER TO WATCH:
Mitch Cook
WHAT THE CLUB SAYS:
“Last year we were trying to establish the footy we wanted to play and I feel really comfortable that we were able to achieve that,” Horsley said.
“Now it’s about setting up a consistency of that; the natural growth of the group will continue, we’ve brought in some pretty good pieces to compliment that as well.
“We expect to be right up there challenging the likes of Cheltenham, Springvale Districts and Cranbourne ... we expect to be there when the whips are cracking.”
EAST BRIGHTON
LAST YEAR: Division 2 premiers — 19-1
COACH: Nick Jewell (second season)
CAPTAINS: Blake Cochrane, Sean Downie
IN: Rob Forrest (Western Australia), Jackson Hannah, Josh Bennett, Kyle Hutchison (Frankston YCW), Mitch Backman (Pines), Andrew Denoon (Epping)
OUT: Mark Jamieson (retired), Ryan Semmel (Chuona), Luke Semmel
PLAYER TO WATCH:
Tom Lamb
WHAT THE CLUB SAYS:
“It’s not hard to be motivated, we’re up in Div 1 — that’s where we want to be,” Jewell said.
“As silly as it sounds, the goal wasn’t so much winning the premiership, it was to be back in Division 1, the club sees itself as a Div 1 club.
“We’re excited, we’re back in the top flight against the best sides in the competition and get to challenge ourselves against the best — that’s why you play the game.
“The boys are keen on seeing how good we can be.”
MORDIALLOC
LAST YEAR: Eighth — 4-14
COACH: Ben McGee (new)
CAPTAIN: Toby Plant
IN: Billy Evers (Labrador QLD), Jack Caine (St Bede’s), Josh Groves (St Bede’s), Luke Goddard (St Bede’s), Nick Grech (St Bede’s), Rylie McLean (Narre South Saints), Dawit McNeish, Marley Huet (Officer), Jack Papas (Phillip Island)
OUT: Mitch Brown (Parkdale Vultures), Darcy Brown (injury), Dylan Gregson (Devon Meadows), Jack Bailey (Devon Meadows)
PLAYER TO WATCH:
Nick Grech
WHAT THE CLUB SAYS:
“We’d be very disappointed, the whole club, if we weren’t able to maintain a level of competitiveness within the Div 1 competition and win a few games,” McGee said.
“We’re not in the false representation where the club last year felt they were in a position to be in the top five.
“We definitely want to knock on the door but at this point in time we’ve got to accept that we’ve got a lot of unknown.
“I think we’ll get a real sense of our reality in the first four to six weeks.”
PORT MELBOURNE COLTS
LAST YEAR: Preliminary finalist — 14-7
COACHES: Justin Taylor and Chris Deluca (new)
CAPTAIN: Justin Taylor
IN: Matthew Della-Libera (returning), Jack Berry (Frankston Bombers), Luke McComb (Ferntree Gully), Michael Hibberd (Melbourne AFL), Tom Bellchambers (Heidelberg)
OUT: Jake Baltas (St Paul’s McKinnon), Jackson Williams (Chuona), Zak McGubbin (Greensborough), Billie Smedts (Thomson), Dean Giles (overseas)
PLAYER TO WATCH:
Luke McComb
WHAT THE CLUB SAYS:
“The expectation is to get better as a group, results should take care of themselves,” Taylor said.
“The turnover from Cadds (Josh Caddy) will be a bit different but I think we will be all right.
“He’ll (Hibberd) be a bit of a utility, credit to him, he said to me ‘wherever you need me, I’ll play’, which is not something you always get from AFL guys — he’s been a breath of fresh air.
“If we can get him around the footy as much as possible, we will.”
SPRINGVALE DISTRICTS
LAST YEAR: Elimination finalist — 12-6
COACH: Kris Thompson (seventh season)
CAPTAIN: Mason Russell
IN: Riley Collier-Dawkins (Woodville-West Torrens),Kyle Hendy (Hampton Park), Josh Bradley (Karingal),Jason Hinde (Karingal), Hudson Thomas (Noble Park), Levi Dixon (Karingal), Jack James (Clayton), Liam Carroll (Lakes Entrance), Adam Wheeler (Noble Park), Shem Tatupu (St Kilda City), Ky Allcock (Haileybury), Ben Brunt (Maffra)
OUT:
PLAYER TO WATCH:
Shakore Bragg-Taylor
WHAT THE CLUB SAYS:
“Division 1 is wide open this year and our players and coaches have worked extremely hard to give ourselves the best chance to improve again on last season,” Thomspon said.
ST PAUL’S MCKINNON
LAST YEAR: Sixth — 10-8
COACH: Andy Scott (new)
CAPTAIN: Matt Kreymborg
IN: Harry Hunt (returning), Jake Baltas (Port Melbourne Colts), Anthony Anastasio (Port Melbourne VFL), Brayden O’Toole (St Bede’s), Judd Rowell (St Kilda City), Mason Martinez (Ormond), Izzy Tahana (Ormond)
OUT: Steve Muller (retired)
PLAYER TO WATCH:
Harry Hunt
WHAT THE CLUB SAYS:
“I think we’ll surprise a few,” he said.
“We want to be a young and exciting team with a balance of experience.
“Come the middle of the year, hopefully we’ve shown the league that we mean business and we’re serious this year.”
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