By Jared Beanland.
The ultimate success that had eluded Rowville finally came last year, however success does not mean rest for the Hawks, as they shape up for their first ever premiership defence at the highest level of the league.
Rowville won their first ever premiership in the top division of the EFNL in season 2023, going one better than their efforts last year. The ten point defeat of Vermont in an all-time EFNL classic put an exclamation point on the rapid improvement the side has shown in the past two seasons. Senior men’s coach Ben Wise reflects on his feelings about what it meant to win the league’s most coveted achievement.
“It was a great feeling, and a great reward for the amount of effort we put in. And being the first (top division) Premiership at the club, and creating history, and just seeing the look on some of these faces that have been through tough times, or had never experienced it, especially with our players. Yeah, it was really exciting I thought.”
“They’re hard to win, it’s hard to get there, we’ve been lucky enough that we’ve been competitive for the past couple (of seasons), so to win one after the year before, it’s great.”
Wise is aware of the dangers of already having won a premiership, however he’s counting on the positive impacts of having a winning culture to counteract any complacence that may take root within the club.
“With a young group not overly experienced in terms of games played, there’s always the worry they might rest on their laurels a bit, and not be motivated to keep coming back hungrier, so you worry about that. They boys seem to have come back hungrier though, they’ve obviously had a taste of it now, and they want more. There were a lot of guys missing out the year before, so those guys are really hungry. You’ve got new players at our footy club that have bought into our culture, too. I think the effect has been positive, they just want more and more. Once you get that mindset within the group it can be pretty powerful.”
There’s a plethora of aspects that a footy team, and club as a whole need to get right, but the one that Wise stresses the most is the cohesion of the footy team. The foundation of Rowville’s success was built through the junior programme, and the players that had stuck around to play in the senior side have ensured that the bonds between teammates translate into greater cohesion on the field.
“A lot of things go in to get to the last game of the year, whether it is training standards, the effort we put in, the culture that we build, the winning mentality, the positive mindset, there’s plenty of things you could put it down to. I think the best thing for us is that we are really tight as a group. We’ve got a lot of junior players coming into the senior side who played in the Grand Final. We had 20 out of the 22 play juniors with the footy club, and I think 90% of the group have come through underage playing their footy together. That’s something you can’t buy, and can’t create.”
With the number of injuries to key members of Rowville’s side throughout season 2023 – the biggest being their prolific ruckman, Nik Schoenmakers – it wasn’t a perfect run for the Hawks, however. Yet despite this, and being a club marked for success by other teams, Wise was happy with how the team handled such challenges.
“I think for us, now we’re going to be the hunted, I felt like we were probably hunted last year, and we won in so many different ways. We overcame adversity, we had a lot of injuries to good players. We had key personnel out for a lot of the year. And for the blokes who came in and played their roles throughout the year, I think it opened the eyes up for the younger boys, those who had come up from the 19s. It shows that if you do the right things you get you get your opportunity and go from there.”
As Wise mentioned, with any team who wins the Premier Division Grand Final, there is now a massive target on Rowville’s back, which he is acutely aware of.
“I suppose every year you’ve got to evolve, the game changes, new personnel comes in. We’re going to adapt to those things that sides did really well against us, and we look to counteract them a lot better. So we’re forever evolving, and then adding to the group. We’re going to have different people in different spots, and different talents are going to bring different attributes to the side. The way we want to play will be similar, but with different personnel in different spots on the ground, it’s going to add different dimensions for the opposition. So they’re going to find it really hard to counteract us.”
The Rowville way of playing has adapted well to the way the game is being played in the wider context of the sport, and Wise is happy with not changing much, but continuing to grow the style of game that worked so well last year.
“In terms of new gameplan, I don’t think I’ll change too much, I think whatever we did we’ll do better. I think it’s an offensive game now, so you’ve got to have a really strong defence set-up, which we do. If you look at the AFL now, they score really quickly, and transition the ball quickly, and a lot of goals get scored from turnovers and stoppages. So we’ve just got to make sure that those aspects of the game are going to give us the most potency.”
All clubs have attrition in the off-season, and premiership winning sides such as Rowville are no exception. One of the stars of the side throughout the year missed out on the Grand Final, and has since vacated the club for bigger and better things, and another is making his mark in the VFL.
“We turned over a little bit of our list, we had a couple of guys move on that were in and around the mark of our senior side. We lost Jake Arundell to the SANFL, he’s gone over there to play for South Adelaide. He’s a player that’s going to be really hard to replace, he’s such a quality player with ball in hand, and can play multiple positions. So he’ll be missed. And we’ve probably lost a couple of boys to the VFL, for example Kyle Stainthorpe has gone to Frankston full time, but we’ll see him in bits and pieces, but I’d imagine he won’t be playing much for us, watching his early games he’s become a big part of their backline.”
However, as Wise explains, there’s plenty of talent coming through the ranks. Rowville look forward to debuting a number of kids who have made names for themselves in places such as the Coates Talent League, along with a more senior name in Liam Coghlan who has had VFL experience.
“But the kids we’ve got coming up – we’ve got Brayden Laplanche, and Tyson Sruk in from the Eastern Ranges. And then we’ve got Liam Coghlan who’s come on board this year, he’s been around the VFL with Port Melbourne. We’ve got Riley Linke from Mulgrave, Mitch McCarthy from Mazenod Old Boys, so there’s been some different looks. And then we’ve got some younger players stepping up from our under 19s the year before such as Jayden Martingale, Jake Edwards, Brodie Herkess, so we’ve probably added 10 or so, that’ll be in and around the mark. The younger brother of Callum Verrell, Will Verrell, he’s also another one that having a look at practise matches, looks like he’s ready for senior level football.”
While the senior list is in a healthy spot, the ground-up approach is one that Wise is keen to double down on. While the Rowville reserves team missed out on playing finals last year, finishing with a record of 7 wins, 11 losses, improvement in this area is going to be another focus for the coaching group at Seebeck Oval.
“Our squad is in a lot better shape than the year before. We’ve maintained everyone, and created a culture where people don’t want to leave, whether or not they’ve got to bide their time and play well in the reserves to get their senior opportunity. I think my ambition for this year was to get our reserves playing finals footy and our under 19s. So we’ve been working really hard to develop those young guys, and keep all those kids on board so we can develop them into senior players. So we’ve got our work cut out, but we’re going in the right direction.”
Another positive for Rowville is the health of the list coming into the preseason, with not too many outs from their best 22 for round 1.
“Kurtis Flakemore had an operation after the Grand Final, he won’t be back until June. But everyone else seems to have come back in really good shape. The list is pretty healthy, it’s still really young, and the boys will continue to develop and get bigger and stronger.”
Will all this said, the main objective for Rowville is obvious – going back to back. Wise notes that there will be some strong competition in the way of that goal, however, as there are plenty of contenders for their crown.
“(Going back-to-back) is what we set out to do, but first and foremost we’ve got to make sure we’re there to compete in the finals at the end of the year, so making finals is the main objective, but then once we’re looking like getting there, then we want to make sure of top 2. Getting the double chance plays a big part in the way things will be set up this year. So we’re setting ourselves up to have a crack at it again.”
“I know the comp’s probably going to be strong again, and sides have gone out to recruit really strongly, so I think we’re going to have improvement from East Ringwood, Doncaster East has gone out and brought big names in, Vermont obviously they always compete at the top, they never go away. Then you look at the Balwyns and Blackburns, even South Croydon, they could be a bit of a sleeping giant I reckon, if they get their experienced players playing really good footy they could cause some upsets, that’s for sure.”
Rowville will commence their premiership defence at home, coming up against Berwick. The Hawks will play the Wickers at Seebeck Oval on the 13th of April.
