Southern league: Cranbourne encourages all comers

Cranbourne coach Steve O’Brien is happy for opposition clubs to talking up his side’s goal of back-to-back premierships with six ‘new’ players dreaming of the success they missed out on.

Southern league Division 1 Grand Final: Cheltenham v Cranbourne. Cranbourne players celebrate their win. Picture: Valeriu Campan

Cranbourne coach Steve O’Brien is embracing the hunted tag as his Eagles pursue back-to-back premierships.

After claiming the Southern league Division 1 title last year in its debut season in the competition, Cranbourne will welcome the pressure of being the reigning premiers.

“We were pretty much the hunted for most of last year I reckon, we know we’re going to be the hunted again this year and that’s okay,” O’Brien said.

“It’s a tag we have carried previously so it’s not something we are worried about at all; it doesn’t frighten us.

“We have to make sure we are giving ourselves the best opportunity to go back-to-back and that starts with our pre-season.

While the Eagles are yet to have added a big-name recruit, O’Brien considers the unlucky six that missed out on last year’s premiership through injury as a selection of new recruits for 2023.

“Our focus was really the existing group, we had six guys that didn’t play in the grand final side through injury and we think there’s a lot of depth with those six,” he said.

“We are pretty happy with where our list is that we wanted to look on our own boys first, and in particular those boys who missed out on that opportunity last year.”

Marc Holt celebrates after kicking truly in his final game. Picture: Valeriu Campan

With the retirement of Marc Holt, Cranbourne will line up differently to how it has in the past.

But despite admitting a player of Holt’s calibre is irreplaceable, O’Brien is comfortable his side won’t have to change too much to succeed without him this season.

“You can never replace a player like that, he (Holt) is one of the greatest local footballers to have ever played the game so you just can’t replace that,” he said.

“We’ve already spoken about it; we will change a few things up there, we have had a look at our ball movement as well (to see) if we adjust that to suit the different set up we have up forward.

“It’s not totally foreign to us, Holty did leave for one year in 2019 and we had to find a way that year, we did it pretty successfully, we were still able to play consecutive finals that year.

“Yes, you can’t replace such a wonderful player, but we will make some tweaks and hopefully that works for us, but our game is in pretty good stead.

“We won’t change too much, it has been a method that has been really successful for us, so we won’t tip the place upside down.”