By Matt Fotia
2021 was a tough pill to swallow for Luke Tynan and the Upper Ferntree Gully Football Netball Club, but the Kings coach is confident that the wheel has already started turning for his young group.
Last year was tough for Upper Gully, not only with the consistent covid induced interruptions to the season, but also on field, where they struggled to keep up with the rest of Division One.
The Kings snared their only win of the 2021 season in a one-point thriller against Lilydale, in what turned out to be the final round of football for the year.
They had shining lights throughout year, with playing coach Tynan showing his class and youngster Thomas Lovell kicking 20 plus goals. Alas Lovell has moved to divisional rival Mitcham and has taken fellow youngster Mason O’Sullivan with him.
All that being said Tynan is more bullish this year, with the pre-season progress pleasing to the storied state league gun.
“Comparing this year to last year we’re looking a lot more promising, with a lot more consistency at training and our core group are a younger brigade, so having another pre-season under their belt has helped a lot,
“Early last year they were jumping from Under 17’s into senior football, so I think the increased conditioning and another year establishing them at the senior club will help drive us forward.”
Whilst they haven’t been able to bring in any big-name players to help swing public opinion in a more optimistic direction, the Kings have made some crucial coaching appointments, with Aaron Smith and Pat Garrity coming on as assistants.
“Our gap at the club at the moment is leadership, so we went about bolstering up our coaching division, just to get some more experience and hands on coaching around the younger kids,
“Last year I felt that whenever I was able to put some more concentrated effort into areas we saw growth, so by spreading the load and having more coaches, we’re hoping to fast track the development as quick as possible.”
With such a young age demographic across the squad, Tynan’s worries are not that his side doesn’t have the necessary talent, more that they haven’t quite grasped what it takes to play Division One football.
“It’s about teaching the younger guys how to play senior football – that’s my take on things,
“Opening their eyes to certain ways of playing the game, a lot of players who come out of juniors just follow the football around, whereas Division One football you need to have more to your game,
“So, it’s been about teaching them how to play balanced two-way football and how to setup the ground on both offence and defence.”
“From a training point of view, I think we’re a lot more advanced,
“Last year we felt like we were teaching them really basic stuff, but now we’ve got a stronger base we can start to add more layers onto that.”
With just one win in 2021 and his leading goal kicker out of the side, you could excuse Tynan for setting some fairly uninspiring goals, but the Upper Gully mentor isn’t putting a ceiling on how his troops will fare in 2022.
“I think our main goal is about getting belief into the playing group,
‘I thought your best football really challenged opponents last year, so it’s about getting confidence into our young playing group
“If we do that, we can get on a roll and knock off a few teams.”
