The Basin are targeting a shift to ‘the next level’ in season 2021, as the young Bears set themselves to come out of hibernation with a bang.
The Bears showed signs of life in 2019, battling the year out impressively to come away with five wins in a very strong Division Two.
Coach Justin Stanton and his staff then went about their post season review and came away with two key areas to focus on before they next kicked a football in anger.
“At the end of 2019 we identified that there were some areas that we needed to improve on and one of them was to add some depth to our playing list, because we found that our best 22 was very competitive but a good side bats deep and we didn’t have that ability,”
“The other area was our on field leadership, we felt we lacked a lot of voices on field and we thought that if we could address that, if we find ourselves in a similar situation to last season with a lot of close games, we might be able to steal a few or hold onto those leads.”
Prior to season 2020 the Bears recruited a handful of players from across the state to address this and went even further in the build up to 2021, adding experienced small forward Michael Cardamone to both their coaching staff and playing list.
“First and foremost, it’s his leadership and it’s a role where he wants to develop his coaching further, so he’ll be looking after our forwards, especially the smalls,”
“Obviously he can battle for selection as well, he’s not a guaranteed walk up start of course,”
“We’ve added Jack Walton, a small forward from Moe Football Club and Luke Scott a mid sized defender from Beaconsfield.”
With the depth on its way to be sorted, Stanton can now turn his attention to developing The Basin’s leadership stocks and it’s been so far, so good this pre-season for those at Batterham Reserve.
“We had a really good pre-season heading into 2020 when it came to developing leaders, and we set those guys various goals during the lockdown periods, which they met comfortably,”
“So, it’s been an ongoing thing, developing these leaders, during the season that never happened,”
“We expect them to give some leadership across the front third, middle third and back third of the ground.”
With improving leadership and increasing levels of experience amongst the squad, Stanton believes that his side has a number of surprise packets in its midst, all of them ready to burst onto the scene.
“Nick Hallo had a great 2019 and we expect him to continue that development, Lachlan Kruger, Tom and Connor Edwards, Jackson Drake, Ethan Power, Mitch Brown, are all guys that have played a fair bit of senior football now and they’re still babies (in a footballing sense),”
“We’ve pumped 40 plus games into them, so they’re ready to burst.”
Division Two will continue to be a difficult competition to play in, with a strong Knox side dropping down after six wins in Division One and a very impressive South Belgrave unit jumping up after an undefeated season in 2019.
And whilst Stanton isn’t putting a ceiling on his group this season, he and the club are eyeing off a period of sustained success in the future.
“The toughest challenge for us will be weekly one, there won’t be an easy game looking at the fixture,”
“We expect Knox to be a handful – they’ll be keen to take control of this division – South Belgrave have got a terrific list and then everyone else there was hardly anything in it, plus you add in new coaches at Heathmont and Mulgrave,”
“We expect it to be a far more challenging than what it was in 2019, which in itself was a very tough year.”
“The pleasing thing for us is that we’re on a pathway that isn’t going to peak for some time,”
“We’ve put a list together that will place ourselves in a position to play finals, something we’re aiming for this year, and hopefully in the next couple of years put ourselves in a position to win a flag and get promoted and still have a list that’s growing as it goes up.”
Another list that is growing is that of The Basin women, with the women’s program continuing to benefit from a strong and vibrant junior program.
Women’s coach Matt Bailey has been involved with the club and the female program for three years, having first come down as the husband of one of the club’s players, and the ex-East Ringwood player is ready to step up and help this evolving club.
“It’s amazing, especially their junior program which is massive,”
“It’s not the rough and tough club it used to be and it’s become a bit of a destination club and they’re going about it the right way.”
The Bears biggest strengths according to their new coach, is the wide range of players on their list and the strong relationships they have across the board.
“We’ve sort of built the women’s side on some variety and we’ve prided ourselves with the fact that we have such a diverse list,”
“What makes us a great side is that it’s not a clicky team at all and even though we’ve lost a few good players due to off field things, we’ve recruited quite well and all the girls who have come down and checked it out and they go away saying how much different it is to a lot of clubs, which is fantastic.”
The Bears are coming off a grand final loss to South Croydon in 2019, but unusually this hasn’t been a driving force for Bailey’s troops this pre-season, with the new coach expecting training to step up drastically as the season nears.
“Weirdly it seems to have lost a lot of motivation for some of them,”
“With a diverse group, especially age wise, they don’t really start attacking training until about March, so I think I’ll see a lot more of that hunger in the coming weeks.”
The Basin take on Heathmont at H.E.Parker Reserve to start their 2021 Season on the 10th of April. The Women’s fixture has not been released at the time of writing.