20 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: Joseph Arthur
VERMONT will be the hunted in season 2020, but after winning back-to-back premierships in 2018 and 2019, this will be nothing new.
The Eagles took home the silverware for the second time in two seasons last year after defeating Blackburn by six goals in the big dance, following the club’s minor premiership after just one loss all season, finishing 17-1.
The Premier Division mainstay has been at the top of the EFNL across all age groups and divisions for years and senior coach Harmit Singh says the expectation for 2020 is no different.
“Expectations are that we will be doing everything possible within our football program to give us the best opportunity to succeed across all grades,” Singh said.
“The boys have comeback in pretty good shape and as we get to the end of this pre-season block into practice games, commitment has been pretty good.
“We’ve been able to try some different things on the track, tinker with how we like to play a little bit and I guess we’ll be able to practice that over the next three weekends with our practice games.”
In terms of recruiting, some of the biggest names for Vermont were those it was able to retain.
Reigning Chandler Medal winner and leading goal-kicker across Premier Division, Brett Eddy, is returning to the club along with the likes of Jake Best, Lachie Carey and Tom Schneider just to name a few.
However, with a few young boys departing the club in favour of Wantirna South, Harmit Singh said the Eagles tried to bring in some youth to cover those losses.
“We’ve been able to retain some big players such as Brett Eddy, but we’ve clearly had some departures as well … that being said, we’re comfortable with the list we’ve got,” Singh said.
“Our specific focus has been around trying to bring some more young talent into the senior program … from a recruiting sense we weren’t that active, we were able to retain a lot of our under-19s players and they have been training really hard.
“We were able to bring in, with our connection to the Tiwi Bombers, Jeffrey McDonald … he’s training really well and he’s got himself into great shape.”
The inclusion of 20-year-old McDonald will be key to the Eagles youth movement, along with the additions of Mitch Mellis from Boronia and James Ross – two VFL listed players.
“It’s been handy to have players of the calibre of Mitch Mellis with us, but look, Mitch is going quite well at Williamstown, hopefully he’ll play a lot of the year with them and we hope that’s the case with players like James Ross as well,” Singh said.
With the key focus being on Round 1, the Eagles are gearing up to make a run at the three-peat, something we haven’t seen in the EFNL for over a decade.
Funnily enough, the last club to achieve this feat was Vermont from 2005-07, and it will be hoping history can repeat itself.
“We’ll be ready to play and ready to compete and you can see from the shape players are in that they’re really hungry to succeed,” Singh said.
“The last month and a half (of pre-season) has been really positive and clearly teams will be trying to knock us off … so we’re under no illusions that it’s incredibly hard to win a three-peat.
“At the moment to be honest, were more focused on Round 1; another opportunity to practice and learn from what we’ve been doing in preseason.”
Formerly the club’s under-18 girls coach, Tim da Silveira will be taking the reins as coach of Vermont’s senior women’s team in 2020.
The competition will be fierce in the top tier, but da Silveira said he’s excited to see what his new team can do against the league’s best.
“We’re excited with the season coming up …we’ve got good numbers at training, about 33 girls through training up until this point so it’s been really good,” da Silveira said.
The senior side has seen a considerable overhaul in personnel this year and da Silveira said the adjustment has taken some getting used to, but the prospect of fresh faces and younger players bodes well for the season ahead.
“We’ve probably had half the team turnover this season, the first of what we call our girls program graduates have come through, which is 10 or 11 girls from the under-18s,” da Silveira said.
“So the girls have come through into the senior team and the other side of that is a lot of the older girls have dropped off or left for different reasons.
“This year we’ve gone from probably one of the older teams in the competition to now, I think we’d be one of the two or three younger sides in the competition.”
Despite the change, the squad has retained some key players from last season who possess some much needed senior experience to help guide its younger players.
Among those returning are past league best and fairest Hayley O’Neil and Sophie Hatzismalis, who looks poised for a big year after spending the off-season with Nightcliff in the Northern Territory’s NTFLW.
“From the under-18s some big up-and-comers are Holly Cullen, Cat Chamberlain, Gemma Martucci and Hayley O’Neil’s sister Molly,” da Silveira said.
“We also have a new recruit originally from the Eastern Devils, Evie Allman, who is close to six-feet tall and has a booming kick.”
With the squad starting to unify as pre-season comes to an end, da Silveira said he’s looking forward to the season and expects to blend both seriousness and fun as the season unfolds.
“Obviously we want them having fun – football is a game – but we also want to teach them about football as well,” da Silveira said.
“We’re big on bringing some professionalism to the women’s team but also making sure we don’t lose the fun-side of women’s footy.
“It’s very hard to put fitness and fun in the same sentence but so far we’ve managed to do it.”
Vermont opens its season away to Doncaster East at Zerbes Reserve on Saturday, April 4, while the women’s fixtures are set to be released at a later date.
