22 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: Steve White
THE 2019 season will live on for a long time in the hearts and minds of the Fairpark faithful.
The Lions finished third on the Division 4 ladder with 12 wins and four losses with their season culminating in a thrilling 15-point grand final win over East Burwood, delivering the club’s first premiership since 1995.
However, it’s a new year and senior coach Sean Stanton is already well focused on Round 1 and the challenge of Division 3 football, in his fourth season at the helm.
“We started a bit later than usual this year but we’re now at a point where we’re at a good spot pre-season,” Stanton said.
“We’re looking forward to round one. There is a lot of uncertainty as we don’t know a lot about our opposition, but thankfully my brother (Justin Stanton) coaches The Basin. So, I’ve had the ability to tap into him a little bit about some of the other clubs.
“Where that has us in the pecking order in Division 3 this year I don’t know, but I think we’ve got a pretty good list. However, we’re not really going to know where that all stands until we’ve played the teams we haven’t played before really.
“We’re playing the flag favourites first up, so if we put in a good performance then hopefully that will build confidence among the group that we can be competitive in Division 3.”
Fairpark’s senior list has had numerous additions and subtractions from the team that captured the premiership last year, but maintains most of its core.
Brad Nied, Ronald McKendry, Tyrone Fabrizio, Shane Mercer, Efstratios Doulgeris, Stephen Colosimo, Josh Temple and Michael Keem will re-join Jesse Pearce for the 2020 campaign.
Ruckman Kyle Hird, who suffered a horrific broken leg in the grand final win, will also return for the red, blue and gold this season.
“He’s coming along well and hope to have him back either round two or round three. Ben McLeod is another one who is coming back from a long-term injury and we hope to have him back midway through the season,” Stanton said.
Matt Jeffries and Jarrod Wilkin, who were part of the Mount Waverley contingent that came across prior to the 2019 season, have retired. Club runner-up best and fairest James Brown has also hung up the boots.
Making their way to Fairpark Reserve this year from Koo Wee Rup in the West Gippsland League are Rory Connelly, Mitch Collins and Luke Walker. The trio are joined by Paul Gramc from Gembrook-Cockatoo in the AFL Outer East and Michael Smith from Boronia.
Stanton is confident the new additions to the club will cover the gap left by the departures.
“Our strength last year is that we were really well balanced with good depth and I think that will be the case again this year,” he said.
“We lost some quality players from through retirement and so forth, but I think we’ve gone out and filled those gaps really well.
“I’m confident we’ve got good midfield depth and that will allow us to play a couple of guys up forward, allowing us more avenues to create scoring opportunities.
“We also have a lot of players in the 23-24 year old age group on our list, so I’m hoping we also get further improvement from those guys.”
The Lions are also looking to draw upon their youngsters this year.
“Our under-19s are going to be really strong again this year so that’s going to leave the club in good stead going forward,” Stanton said.
“We’ve got three or four young kids that were really good for us in the under-19s last season that have come up. We’ll look to blood them and they’ll hopefully give us some youth and some speed.
“Dale Bent and Mason Byrne, who won the League medal in the under-19s in 2019, are two guys that could come up and play senior footy this year.”
In another first for the Lions, Fairpark will also field its inaugural women’s team this season.
Football operations manager Liam O’Brien says that the formation of the women’s side came about very quickly and organically.
“It’s very exciting that for the first time in the club’s history that we will be fielding a women’s team,” O’Brien said.
“The most surprising aspect was how quickly it got off the ground. We had a few partners and girlfriends of the men’s team approach us at the end of last season and float the idea of a team.
“We then held an information night in November of last year and we had up to 30 girls attend.
“We were also quite lucky that our under-19s coach Mark Fryer, who did a fantastic job with those kids last year, was keen to come on board as the first coach of the women’s team.
“The feedback from training so far has been great. The girls’ all seem to be really enjoying it.
“All of them are really keen to be involved and it’s been exciting to see the growth in that channel over the last few year. In my view, it’s an untapped resource for local footy clubs and to bring the wider footy community together.”
Fairpark begins its season at Fairpark Reserve against the Waverley Blues on April 4, with the women’s fixtures to be released at a later date.
