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By: Daniel Cencic
Twitter: @DC_EFL
A significant turnover of players at East Ringwood has signalled a new era for the club, as it embarks on its 2018 campaign next Sunday afternoon.
The Roos won six matches last season, including a 14-point win over finallist Doncaster in Round 8, along with a 28-point win over North Ringwood in Round 13, finishing ninth on the Division 1 ladder.
The club has seen the departures of experienced names in ex-captain Owen Chadwick, David Evans-Marcius and Brenton Legg who have returned to Scoresby, Mitch Farmer heads to Division 3 side Ringwood, while James Belo and Josh Weightman have joined VFL side, Coburg.
Off the field, assistant coaches Anthony Goodwin and Brett Rowe have taken up senior coaching roles with Mulgrave and Ringwood respectively.
Chadwick has returned to Scoresby. PICTURE: Stuart Milligan
“We’ve won six games two years in a row so we’ve got to find a way to get better,” senior coach Marcus Buzaglo said.
“They (Evans-Marcius, Chadwick and Legg) were great servants of the footy club and it was probably time they thought to move down a couple of divisions – it’s given us a chance to get some new blood in.
“They (Goodwin and Rowe) are both enjoying it (coaching) and I’m sure they’ll both do well.”
Buzaglo says the club’s recruiting this off-season has been targetted towards addressing the Roos’ lack of pace, where up to 11 players on VFL lists will make up East Ringwood’s roster.
21-year-old Port Melbourne-listed Alex Urban will don the royal blue and white this year, along with Coburg half-back and winger, Stuart Donnelly.
Donnelly represented Tasmania at the under-18 championships in 2013, and was also invited to the 2015 AFL national draft combine.
“They’re fairly good inside and provide outside speed as well,” Buzaglo said.
“It’s been pretty strategic with our recruiting – we’ve identified a weakness with the outside speed and ball-use so we’ve tried to improve that area.”
Meanwhile, key backman Daniel Butera has found a new lease on life on the footy field, making the switch into defence in the second half of the 2017 season – where he has continued to grow from strength to strength according to Buzaglo.
“Daniel Butera’s last third of last year was really good, he went to centre half back,” he said.
“He’d been playing forward for us – he’s improved again over the pre-season (and) he’s vice-captain for us this year.
Buzaglo believes one of the keys to climbing the ladder in 2018 will be closing the gap between his young side’s best and worst footy.
“Our best is pretty good,” he said.
“The gap between our best and our worst needs to close up.
“We found at times last year that teams kicked goals in a hurry against us so that’s one aim for us – to find more consistency.
“I think that happens the older you get – we still had a fairly young group last year, not that that’s any excuse but another year older and the main aim for us is to be more consistent throughout games.”
With the impending competition restructure to five divisions, Buzaglo is under no illusions of the challenge the Roos face of staying in the top tier, with two sides to be relegated at year’s end.
“It’s in the back of everyone’s mind – we’re a proud club and we want to be in the first division, but you can only be what your resources allow,” he said.
“We’ve tried really hard to recruit within our means, training as hard as we can and there’s a lot of good work going on off-field as well, and that’s just as important as the on-field stuff.
“We’re hellbent on being involved in the first division down the track, we’ve got a really strong junior club, we’ve got two under-17s and all the way down, we want to provide a pathway for those kids to play first division footy.
“It’s going to be a challenge, every year is, if we train hard and work hard I don’t see any reason why we can’t survive in the division, but also take some steps forward.”
East Ringwood will also field its inaugural senior women’s team in the Deakin University Eastern Region Women’s Competition.
Among the players to have committed to the Roos is Taylah Mount, who has come through the junior ranks at the club and was captain of the under-16 premier girls team last season.
Sarah Farmer will also represent the club, after winning the best and fairest in a premiership year in 2016, along with the league best and fairest and Anzac Day medal. Farmer has also won a rising star award with the Dandenong Stingrays, and subsequently trained with Box Hill before suffering a major shoulder injury.
The side will be coached by Peter Baker, who has over 40 years’ experience in coaching seniors and junior boys and girls’ football.
Baker also heads up the program as the club’s female football coordinator, where he has helped oversee significant growth in junior girls football in the past three years, with the club also fielding sides in under-10s, 12s, 14s, 16s, 18s this year as it looks to provide a solid pathway into senior women’s football.
East Ringwood’s men’s side will open its season against North Ringwood in a standalone clash at East Ringwood Reserve on April 8.
