SFNL: Bentleigh is fuelling its rise with the next generation of talent

Bentleigh has played 30 players under the age of 23, including three 17-year-old debutants, this season. Coach Kristian Bardsley is proud of how far they’ve come but he holds big ambitions for what they can achieve.

Willis Reidy (R) stands with Bentleigh coach Kristian Bardsley ahead of his senior debut.

Bentleigh coach Kristian Bardsley could talk about his young Demons for days.

“They’re our long-term future,” he says.

The Demons have played 30 players under 23 this year, including a third 17-year-old in their last match.

Willis Reidy, the captain of Bentleigh’s under-17s, was the latest teenage debutant, following in the footsteps of Darby Heelis and Ricky Theodoropoulos.

The Demons have come away with the points in just three games to date but Bardsley is backing in the kids.

“We’ve got this crop of young kids who have come through the last few years and what we’re trying to do is, first of all, get them going so they can become senior footballers,” he said.

“Then giving them opportunities to see that at our club there’s going to be spots for the young kids to come through, it’s not about recruit, recruit, recruit, recruit.

“We’re getting games into kids who we think will be good senior footballers in the next two, three, four or five years and build the club on what we’ve built on.”

Willis Reidy (R) stands with Bentleigh coach Kristian Bardsley ahead of his senior debut.

Bentleigh’s under-19 program has been a Southern league force for years.

It has often fielded two sides and went on a two-year winning stretch.

Bardsley said the Demons’ group was initially taken aback by the jump to senior footy but has since warmed to the challenge.

“What we found was, because of the lack of competition in that competition, the kids probably weren’t as far advanced as we probably thought they were,” he said.

“We knew we had to give them opportunities but we also had to give them time to develop.

“There’s been a bit of re-skilling them to play different roles and giving them the confidence that we’re going to back them and they’re our long-term future.

“Once they come in to play senior footy, they get a feeling of ‘jeez, this is not as easy as we thought it would be’ and then you see how much work they want to do.

“The good thing is all of them work really hard and want to get better – they’ve got this bond that they’ve played together that they want to keep.

“Every day they strive to get better, it’s not ‘oh, we won a premiership in the under-19s, we’ll be right’ it’s ‘how do we get better as a group and as individuals’.”

Bentleigh's under-19 program has run amok in recent years.

Bardsley could list each of the 30 under-23s who have played in his side as players to keep an eye out for but earmarked the three under-17s.

“We’ve got Ricky, I think everyone knows about Ricky — he’s played seven games for us and I wouldn’t be surprised if he got tagged in four of them,” he said.

“You’ve got another one in Darby, he’s played 11 games and he’s still under-17s.

“He’s a really good kid, he can play midfield-forward but works really hard, does all the right things and is a bit like a sponge.

“His willingness to learn and listen has been really positive and he’s become a really important player for us.

“You’ve got Willis Reidy, who played his first game last week, he’s the captain of the under-17s and he didn’t look out of place at all.

“We see them as big building blocks for coming years.”

Bentleigh captain Nicholas Bufalo is only 23.

While the kids are the future, Bentleigh hasn’t put a blanket over the present.

When asked when the shift from ‘we will be competitive’ turns into ‘we should be winning’, Bardsley’s answer was simple:

“That’s happening now,” he said.

“The conversation for us is not ‘we’re a young side’, if you look at our results this year, we ran Springy Districts to 20-odd points both times.

“Cheltenham done us by 30 points, we thought we were competitive.

“We’re not saying now we don’t want to compete, we think we’re competing well, we just don’t compete for long enough.

“Whilst we’re disappointed we’re not winning games, we see light at the end of the tunnel.

“We look at our scores for compared to last year has increased, our percentage has increased.

“We’re developing but we’re here to win, it’s now we’re saying let’s turn the switch to become a competitive side who beats sides above us.”

Bentleigh takes on Dingley when Division 1 returns from the bye this weekend.