By Josh Ward.
After missing the finals last year in 2022 Croydon could be set to bounce right back into contention in 2023.
The Blues sat in a finals spot for the first 16 rounds last year. However they fell outside of it in Round 17 before failing to climb back into finals to sit in sixth spot at the end of the season with nine wins.
Morris D’Alessandro is at the helm once again, recently saying that he’s excited about the make-up of his side heading into 2023.
“We’re disappointed with how we finished off last year. We’ve had a really strong preseason so we want to make sure we improve on that and win as many games as possible,” D’Alessandro said.
Retainment has been strong at the Blues this offseason, with D’Alessandro pleased to have majority of his senior players sign on for another year at the club.
“We’re really happy. We made that a priority at the end of last year to make sure that most of the boys were on board again and 95 percent of them were comfortable.
“It’s good to get them back on board and obviously we added to that so we’re pretty happy about where our list is at the moment.”
Amongst those inclusions are Vermont quintet Emiliano and Ezequiel Aleixo, Tyler Dobay, Ethan Bland plus Josh De Wit as well as Norwood young gun Callum Spurrell.
Dermont Reynolds, Bailey Dmonte, Billy Batten and Matthew Graham also make their way to the club after strong seasons with divisional and local rivals Mooroolbark whilst Ben Cardamone returns to the club after spending 2022 in Cairns.
“We’re looking at making our club a bit of a destination club and we pride ourselves on being a really good footy club off the field as well.
“Mainly through mates of mates we got those players down, we then ran through what we’re about at Croydon and it was great to get those boys on board.”
Emiliano Aleixo has also been signed by VFL club Frankston, with D’Alessandro adding that he had already set an example at training this offseason.
“He’s been fantastic and he’s already made an impact at the footy. (With him) coming down from a higher level they bring fresh ideas.
“We’ve also got Jordan Lynch on our list who was at the Northern Blues two or three years ago. Those boys generate so much energy, it’s really good for our footy club.”
With the additions to their list for this coming season D’Alessandro has hopes that the Blues can make up for their disappointing ending to 2022.
“We did cop a bad run of injuries, especially in the middle part of the year. It’d be nice to stay healthy and as aforementioned we’ve retained our list and added to it.
“We just hope that we can win enough games as I said before and feature in finals, that’s what it’s all about.
“(Division 1) is always even and if you’re off for one week it can really hurt you.”