4 DAYS TO GO | EFL Media will be previewing each club ahead of the 2018 season with the #InFocus2018 series, all thanks to Yarra Valley Water & Choose Tap.
By: Jessie Hare
Twitter: @JessieHaree
The Falcons are looking to make a strong statement this year after a narrow two-point loss in the semi-final last year.
The Lilydale Falcons being address at their practice match against Woori Yallock. PICTURE: Lilydale Football and Netball Club Facebook page.
Lilydale had up to 19 players in the team who had never played a senior game before last season, when it went down by just two points to Mooroolbark to end 2017.
The senior coach, Ben Neagle, was happy with his side’s campaign last year.
“I think it’s a great experience more than a learning curve,” Neagle said.
“We go to play finals football with a lot of pressure and hopefully with anything, it has fast tracked our group for this year with a bit of luck.”
Neagle and his Falcons will only be looking forward and have been working hard through the pre-season to be more prepared for season 2018 with Round 1 starting this weekend.
“Strength and conditioning is definitely one thing we’ve improved on. I think our boys certainly have bigger bodies this year and worked pretty hard over the summer,” he said.
“The execution of skill has been a big thing for us and we’ve worked really hard and defensively as well really hard on our game and hopefully we can bring all three of those things together this year.”
Players doing some fitness testing at Saxton Sports during pre-season. PICTURE: Lilydale Football and Netball Club Facebook page.
The Falcons have been busy during the off-season making sure they will bring a strong senior side to play every week.
“We’ve picked up Harry Stevens from Croydon, he is a really fast, good,skillful, half back player. He will be really handy for us,” Neagle said.
“There’s been some good kids who have come up from the under-19s; Sam Baker, really good improver coming up from first year, Corey Bernstein had a great pre-season, Lucas Halse, and Tori Klaas-Henry is another one.
“All three of them have had fantastic pre-seasons and hopefully will consolidate themselves into senior football this year.”
The leadership group is setting the standards down at Lilydale which has impressed Neagle from preseason to Round 1 this weekend.
“Our leaders have been really good; Lachie Wilson, Brad Lowe, Ryan Harvey, Cal Morrison – all our leadership guys have barely missed training and they are in really good physical shape and they’re healthy at the moment,” Neagle said.
“Hopefully, fingers crossed and touch wood we don’t get as many injuries as we did mid-way point of last year where we had eight injuries at one stage so hopefully we can stay healthy,” he said.
With 10 wins to its name in season 2017, Neagle is expecting Lilydale to feature in finals again this year.
“The expectations are, we just keep improving, we won 10 games last year so if we can better that this year, we play finals footy,” he said.
“But with second division being second division, you know how even it is – we were really fortunate to sneak into finals and hopefully we can win 11 or 12 games this year, and we play finals again and give ourselves a chance and that’s the aim.”
The Falcons will open their 2018 season away when they take on Croydon on April 7.
