IN THEIR WORDS – LUKE TEDESCO QUALIFYING FINAL

SEPTEMBER is always an exciting time of year when you have qualified for finals and it has been a successful season for our club so far with all three grades qualifying.

Under Craig Thomas’ guidance, the colts had a fantastic season and will participate in a finals series for the first time in over a decade. Thommo was also awarded the WAFL Colts Coach of the Year award which is a fantastic achievement.  

The integration of some of the colts players into the senior training program and reserves team throughout the year will provide huge benefit for them and the club next year. The likes of Mitch Peirce, Troy Manners, Clint Hinchcliffe and Mitch Walley all provided valuable contribution to the twos team throughout the year and we look forward to seeing them and the other graduating colts progress.

In his first year as reserves head coach, Michael Pratt has done a great job managing the ins and outs each week in addition to developing the very young core group of players. Unfortunately the boys have been re-scheduled to a 9am start this Sunday. The players deal with change every week and I’m confident they will start the club off in the best possible way.

It certainly was a challenging season for the league side. Through injury, some radical form swings earlier in the year and the tightly contested competition, it was a great effort to finish second. I think outsiders tend to forget how deep we have gone with our list this year and the contribution of those guys stepping up at various stages has been outstanding. Bill and the coaching staff have done a great job managing workloads throughout the final eight regular season games following our last break on July 4. I certainly don’t envy their job of finalising the 22 players who will represent our club in the Qualifying Final on Sunday.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the medical and support team in particular Craig Soley, Jess Hayes, Rhys Murray and Greg Smith for all your efforts in managing us through the regular season. I dare say your work rate is due to pick up with players searching for every bit of assistance to get their bodies right.

I absolutely cannot wait till Sunday and we would love to see a huge turn out from the best supporters in the league.