Men’s Co-Captain Simon Castles, Men’s Coach Greg Van Meeuwen, Women’s Captain Meryl McGlone, Women’s Coach Richard Moore & Men’s Co-Captain Ashley Morphet. Photo courtesy of Alan Delaney.
After a long pre-season, the club is about to embark on its 2014 campaign. We’ve have some retirements and departures over the off-season but this has been offset by some big inclusions. We’ve also had major changes in committee with Erica Brodie and Nick Hudson taking the reigns as President and Vice President respectively.
The Women’s VicLeague 1 team have been busy in the summer and have appointed a new coach in the off season, Richard Moore, formerly of PEGS. Richard’s pre-season has already paid dividends with some fantastic results early on, including Runners Up in the Werribee Pre-Season Tournament. The girls are ready for a big 2014 on the back of some strong development of younger players in the 2s who finished fourth last year. The team will be led by Meryl McGlone, who will continue coaching the club as an assistant coach, and she will be deputised by Liz Baglin and Jess Boyd.
The Men’s VicLeague 1 team retain the majority of their squad but will be without Best and Fairest Winner Liam Rothwell who is recovering from his ACL injury. Nick Rees has safely returned to Melbourne after a three month voyage on the Sea Shepherd and has committed to the 2014 season. Former Queensland keeper Adam Dinsdale has come out of retirement (which lasted 5 months) and will play again. The boys have snared a couple of big fish in former University Games player Chris Vaughan, who represented Victoria Country in 2013, and promising young goal keeper Andrew Scoberg has made the move from Greensborough to join the rest of his family. Greg Van Meeuwen will again coach the squad and will be representing the Australian Masters team at the World Cup later this year. Simon Castles and Ash Morphet will again lead the team.
In the lower grades, Liz Wagstaff and Ross Walker will provide some coaching for the Metro teams who will be ably assisted by Abbey, Jay and club legend Ross Erickson. Numbers have been strong on these training nights.
This weekend, our VicLeague teams take on the old enemy Melbourne University at Melbourne Uni and the following week we play our first home game against Geelong in conjunction with our first social event. The Metro teams start their season on the 26th of April.