28 DAYS TO GO | EFNL Media will be previewing each club ahead of the 2020 season with the #InFocus2020 series, all thanks to Yarra Valley Water & Choose Tap.
By: Daniel Cencic
CROYDON North-Mount Lilydale Old Collegians coach Mark Holly says his group has progressed ‘leaps and bounds’ as its Division 4 campaign edges closer.
The club posted a 0-16 record last season in a tough initiation for the League’s newest addition, however Holly believes 2019 set the foundations moving forward.
“It (season 2019) was a lot harder than what we thought it would be,” he said.
“We always knew it was going to be hard, but it was practically starting from scratch (and) you don’t realise what you’ve actually got to do to get a club up and running and keeping players.
“The best part of that that, we built a foundation that we’re happy with and so far it’s looking like it’s actually worked coming into the second season for us.”
Croydon North-MLOC coach Mark Holly.
The first port of call this off-season was the introduction of a season-long fitness program in stark contrast to last year, which Holly commends as having already started to pay dividends.
“With the players and so forth, we didn’t want to scare them off at the very start, we wanted to keep them so we didn’t really do much running in pre-season (last year),” he said.
“The difference this year is that we’ve got a full fitness program – the players understand the hard work that’s needed and all that type of stuff.
“We’re seeing leaps and bounds from our young group already because they understand if they don’t want a season like last year they’ve got to put the hard yards in and do the little things that make all the difference, and that’s what we’re seeing so far.
“We had anything from five to 12 goals kicked in junk-time in every quarter last year, because we weren’t fit enough.
“We now know that if we can run out games, we’re hoping that’ll produce on the scoreboard.”
The club has welcomed around 23 new players to the fold, including Sam D’Argenio who makes the move from Donvale.
A former The Basin and Vermont junior, D’Argenio had previous stints with Ringwood, Park Orchards and Boronia, as well as a handful of senior appearances for Northern Territory league Division 1 outfits, St Marys and the Darwin Buffaloes.
Holly says the 26-year-old has had an immediate impact on his teammates, and numbers on the track this pre-season have been strong.
“He’s one of the older recruits that’s come across. The young kids are really striving to be like him,” he said.
“Last year it (numbers at training) started off really well pre-season, as the season progressed we were anything from 15-25 blokes on the training track whereas this year the lowest we’ve had is about 35 and we’re averaging 35-45 blokes every single night and as the coach, that’s what I’m loving, it’s fantastic.”
Meanwhile, inaugural captain Tim Legg has retired and the club is currently going through the process to determine the new skipper.
Holly paid tribute to his outgoing captain who he says has helped build the club as it embarks on 2020.
“He (Legg) was fantastic for us,” Holly said.
“He was the main reason that all these blokes are coming back, the hard work and dedication that he put in was what set the foundation for us going forward.”
Ahead of the club’s opening round clash with Nunawading away on April 4, the key expectation this season for Holly is to be competitive each week as his side’s experience continues to grow.
“The young group that we had last year have now got that 10-11 senior games of senior football that they’d never had, and now they’re the ones that we’re looking forward to this year,” he said.
“At three quarter-time I’d like to say not ‘let’s keep it under 200 points’ (but) ‘we can win this game of football’.
“It doesn’t mean we have to win them, but if I can speak to my group at three quarter-time to say that we’re still in this, that’s the pass-mark that we’re looking for.”
