From my point of view I have mixed feelings about this season.
Firstly, the coaching staff (pictured: myself, Andy Thornborn, Alan Pottier, Wally Acquino. Not pictured Steve Huxtable) were fantastic. Considering that we were coming from a terriblly low base last season and then this years results were a miracle and the coaches should be very proud of what they achieved.
Secondly, we had very few players at the club for pre season and some of these even left us for supposed greener pastures or simply quit. The work from the coaches in recruiting new players to the club was amazing with Steve Huxtable bringing in the totally unknowns of Ben Coulter and Craig Riley amongst others with these two in particular being fantastic for the club.
Thirdly. we then we gained Dean “el Deano” Thurston and Brendon Craig and the mood starting changing and then a call from Johnny Mirco came in saying he wanted to come back and the place started to come alive.
Fourthly, we then had Stevie Purton join us from UWA and half way through the season, from a contact of a good friend of mine, we welcomed the seasons top scorer in Jamie Ricks to the fold.
Lastly we added our current goal keeper Sam Hutchison to the squad and we really started looking very good
So whilst we had a great season in regards to turning the club around we probably under achieved with the talent we ended up with.
This was down to a few factors though such as:
- Playing formations being tinkered with to try and find our optimal formation
- Putting players in several positions to find out where they best fitted in
- The team being very new to each other
Now for next year, I believe that if we can keep most of the current lads at the club and add in a few new faces then I believe next year we will be a very strong side indeed and anything could happen, who knows maybe even win the league!
Head Coach
Robbie Dunn