By Jared Beanland
A new coach, a new plan, and a different home ground are what the Waverley Blues are armed with, as they look to make up for a disappointing end to a brave run in 2023.
A successful return to Division 2 was cut short, as the 2nd place finishers, the Waverley Blues were defeated in straight sets in the finals series. Tom Langford departs the club after a very successful tenure as head coach, ensuring their rise to the 2nd Division of EFNL footy, which included a stellar 2022 premiership-winning season. The man to lead the club in 2024 has been assistant coach to Langford, and is looking to make his mark at the club he calls home. Scott Savage taking over seems to be a natural progression for the club as they make their way up the divisions in the EFNL.
“It’s been good to take over the head role, and the boys have been really accepting to it, and have taken on board everything that we’ve brought.”
With new development happening, and new facilities being built at Mt Waverley Reserve, the Waverley Blues have had to move their operation over a suburb to Glen Waverley. Central Park was once home to the Glen Waverley Hawks, and will once again see use in the EFNL as the temporary home ground for the Blues.
“It’s been challenging at some stages. We obviously moved to Central (Park) for this season, for the new upgrade of the facilities at Charles Street. It’s been challenging being uprooted from your own home that you’ve known for so many years, and trying to adapt to a new environment. But that’s one thing I’d give credit to everybody, the whole club’s all united together, and taken the move on board, and made Central our home for the next year or two.The boys have adapted really well to it and gotten on with business.”
While the foundation of the playing group and gameplan are sound, weaknesses were exposed during the finals series. Templestowe and Heathmont defeated the Waverley Blues convincingly, by 33 and 77 points respectively, leading to questions about the viability of the team as contenders to a Division 2 premiership. Savage has faith in what has been set up by Langford, but is keen develop the squad in his own way.
“It was a great, successful home and away season coming up into the division. Like most clubs that come up into a new division we were quite successful in our first season. Obviously the finals weren’t what we hoped for with the straight sets losses. Tom Langford, he set a good foundation for the boys and the club in his tenure, and I just saw it fitting for myself to take over the reigns and take the job on to keep going with what he instilled in the group, but also add a bit of what I think the team can do better to go forward and get that success.”
Savage is full of praise for the way the Blues went about their footy under Langford, but is weighing what sort of improvements need to be made to re-establish his team as contenders for the flag. Often when teams got ahold of Waverley, there was no way back, and a plan B is a big part of what has been spoken about at the club.
“The way the boys play attacking football, the scoring power we’ve got up forward with Josh Williamson. He’s won the goal kicking for the comp in the past two years (Div 3 in 2022, and Div 2 last year). We’ve got a healthy backline, our midfield we’ve re-stocked this year. The way we play the game is exciting, but I think you’ll see different game modes to stop the run-on of teams, and what happened to us in the finals series.”
“(A plan B) is something we’ve spoken about, and addressed as a coaching staff, and the playing group. We’ve identified areas of improvement, and what needs to be done. Obviously I’m not going to release the plans to the whole world, but it’s something we’ve addressed. We think that we’ve got a process now, that can look at that plan B, because I think that was part of the game that we needed to get better on.”
Division 2 saw an exciting finals race as the home and away season drew to a close, with plenty of jostling for spots, and teams unlucky to miss out. Savage has a healthy respect for those teams, and the ones coming into the division.
“I see Division 2 as one of the most competitive divisions out of the five. As you can see, besides Boronia last year who were out there in front, from 2nd to 5th there were only one or two games separating them. And if you go down to 7th last year, there wasn’t much separatingthem either. Croydon to me will be one of those teams this year, because they were very stiff to get relegated, winning 6 games in Division 1, they’ll be a team to look out for I reckon.”
Fresh blood will be coming into the side from an under 19s side which made finals last year in the Premier Division of the 19.5s age group.
“We’ve got our graduation group from our under 19s Premier Division team from last year. We’ve got the likes of some of those boys who’ve come up who have really stepped up at training, and are pushing the senior players. They’re showing themselves to be ready to go.”
The core group of young players in the Blues jumper have been more than promising for the past couple of years, and Savage is confident they’ll continue to improve.
“With another year under the belt of some of these 21 and 22 year old players we had last year, and another preseason, they’re just going to go from strength to strength this year. You’ve got Angus Cramer, James Mittel, a veteran in Chris Duck, Dimma Roufous, Omar Mohammed – he’s come up and predominantly was playing a forward role and last year came into a midfield role, and he’s taken his game to the next level.”
The philosophy of homegrown talent runs deep at the Waverley Blues, as exemplified by the appointment of Savage as the head coach. He means to continue that trend of investing in the junior and under 19s programmes, and as such has not recruited heavily during the offseason.
“We haven’t gone out and overly recruited a lot of players. We have faith in our under 19s programme, that’s worked over the last three years. Obviously Tom helped develop that through, and the rewards of having them train with the senior group over the past two years, and seeing what they can do is great. They’re just as good as new recruits, these under 19s we’re bringing up. But yes, we’ve gone and gotten a couple of recruits here and there, we’ve got Will Little who’s come across from South Melbourne in the ammos (VAFA), he slots in nicely to our back half.”
“I’ve been involved with the Waverley Blues for the past couple of decades, the premierships that the club has won – in 2005, 2008, and 2022 – if you look at those teams, three quarters of those teams were homegrown players from the juniors.”
“It’s not about getting out there and getting the high-price recruits. You work with what you’ve got sometimes, and let the talent shine.”
There’s a real belief around the Waverley Blues for 2024, and through the changes aroundand within the club, Scott Savage’s message is one of unity.
“With the move to Central, everyone’s gelled and bought into it, and got around each other. It’s a whole new chapter for the club. We’ve got a new president (Chris Hale), a new coach in myself, it’s a whole new chapter, and we want to make this a successful one.”
“It’s an exciting year ahead, the guys have worked extremely hard over the preseason, and I’m excited to lead this group. I’m a Waverley Blues person through and through. The whole club’s behind everybody, there’s no one better than the other person in the group. We’re one. We’re one club, and that’s our motto for the year. From the juniors, to the 19s, to the reserves, seniors, and women’s, it’s all about us as a club.”
The Waverley Blues will begin their 2024 with an away game against fellow 2023 finalists Mulgrave. The Lions will host the Blues at Mulgrave Reserve on Saturday the 6th of April.
Last year the Waverley Blues re-introduced a women’s team to their club, and saw the girls enjoy a successful season. Playing in Division 2, the Blues women made it to the finals, winning in the first week against East Burwood, before being eliminated by Surrey Park. Clint Martin returns as the senior women’s coach in 2024, and has been very happy with the amount of players returning for these season.
“It’s been pretty good with the numbers. We had a sign-up night, and we’ve pretty much retained 95% of the squad, which is fantastic.”
“And especially as last year was our first year back in the comp, the girls coming together as a team, getting to know how each other plays. We don’t have our 18s side coming through just yet, we’ve got to wait a couple more years. So to have 95% of the players coming back, it’sgoing to be a bit of a bonus for us.”
Not having had a women’s side for a number of years, the re-integration was easy, and Martin praises the efforts of the club to be as inclusive as possible.
“With Waverley Blues, because of their professionalism, they see not just the inclusion of the women’s team, but also the juniors with a one-club mentality. There were no issues whatsoever, and in fact I’ve got a good relationship with the senior men’s coach (Scott Savage), I played with him back in the day. He’s very good with the women’s side, about equal time on grounds. So the club is very supportive of the women’s side. We’ve got a new president this year, and I’ve spoken to him about what the women’s side is going to look like in the next two or three years. And it’s really good to have that sort of support.”
Last year was a season of unexpected success, for the Blues women. A record of 9 wins, 5 losses, and a finals victory is not what the club was anticipating. There are encouraging signs for coach Martin, but he’s intent on warning his players against being complacent.
“In some respects, we probably over-achieved. We never set out to do that, we mainly set out to reset the team, and get the team going again. It was a huge bonus for the girls – especially a lot of them playing first year of senior women’s football – coming together as a side and playing finals, that was a huge boon for us. But we’re reminding the girls this year that you can’t be complacent. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to happen this year.
“But for our first year back in the comp, we had a good first half of the season, but we fell away a little bit in the second half, and that’s where we need to improve with our consistency.”
There were plenty of stars across the board for the Blues in 2023, and a few of their more consistent players have stepped it up once again during the pre-season.
“It’s not uncommon for most of my girls to be running from 6-7k per night. Our intensity is really high. A number of our girls have come up this year, and our best and fairest from last year, Abbey Cerovac, she’s in really good form and fitness, and she’s shown up well in her pre-season with her running. I’m also looking at some of our girls who played last year, Amelia Bishop and Sarah Morley, they had a good year last year, and I’m sure they’ll continue well into 2024.”
Bishop and Morley in particular combined for a total of 33 goals throughout the year, which was added to by Elise Hoole with another 20.
It’s not just the players continuing with the Blues that Martin is excited about, as there has been a couple of handy pick-ups through the off season.
“But we’ve also got a couple of really good new recruits this year as well. We’ve got a girl called Stephanie Peacock, she had a year out of football last year as a bit of a rest period. She’s a lively forward, she’s shown that she can kick a good 40-50m kick, and is really accurate at goal. She’ll be one to watch this year. There’s another girl from Mazenod called Ellie Poon, and she’s been great on the track, and I’m looking forward to watching her play.”
The foundations for success have been set, and Martin has welcomed a new leadership group to build upon that.
“Now we’ve had that first year under our belt, it’s a case of building upon that, and being more consistent in what we do. We want to play our brand of footy, we don’t want to be dictated to by other teams, so we’ve set our sites on playing our brand only. We’ve got a new leadership group, and we’re getting new ideas with that. We’re looking at it as a different approach in 2024, but trying to build on our success in 2023.”
The whole of Division 2 breathed a collective sigh of relief when it turned out the powerhouse of East Ringwood would be promoted from the division, as it was a dominant season for the Roos last year. Martin says his group is no different, and is still wary of the new teams coming into the division. Ringwood and Chirnside Park have come down from Division 1, Kilsyth has come up from Division 3, and Berwick starts as a whole new team to the league from Division 2.
“They were obviously the stand-out team last year, with 20 goal differences in most of their wins meant it was never going to be a competitive division. The division will probably level out a bit. I’m conscious of the fact that there’s teams that have come down from Div 1, there’s another team that’s come up from Div 3 – Kilsyth, that I’ve coached. They’re going to really be wanting to push us to our limit. I think it’s going to be a bit more of a level playing field, and I reckon there’ll be a more professional Division 2 than it was last year.”
Changing things up from Mt Waverley Reserve to Central Reserve for the Waverley Blues have not only had ramifications upon the training of the women’s team, but also the way they will play their footy in season 2024. With only 16 on the field per team in the women’s competition, the vast expanses of Central Reserve will prove a tough challenge for any team travelling to face the Blues.
“Central Reserve compared to our old ground, is a huge ground. From the women’s perspective there’ll be a lot of room to move around, it is a very wide, open ground. I think it’ll actually suit our style of game, because we actually love playing on the bigger grounds, but it is going to be interesting to see how we adapt to that ground moving forward. It’s a magnificent surface, it’s a different ground, not only for the women’s team, but for the whole club, the juniors and seniors.”
The practise matches – one against Division 1 side Beaconsfield, and another scheduledagainst St. Bede’s/Mentone (a Premier B side in the VAFA) – have also been a cause for optimism amongst Martin’s girls, due to the calibre of teams that have sought out the Waverley Blues for a challenge ahead of their respective seasons.
“We’ve had a couple of practise matches, and the people who have contacted us for those are high profile teams – we played Beaconsfield and lost by a point, and we’ll play St Bede’s/Mentone – they see us, and they want a challenge, so they see us as a challenge to see what they can play against in a different league.”
There is also a lot of cohesion between the senior women’s, and the junior girls at the Waverley Blues, something that Martin thinks will set them up well for years to come.
“I know for the women’s program, it’s coming in leaps and bounds, we’re very supportive of our junior girls coming through, and we’ve got a close association in our interaction with the senior women’s players and our junior girls. They take trainings, and go to their games, and facilitate events with them. From that perspective, it’s a really bright future for the girls and women’s programme at Waverley Blues.”
“We’re pretty lucky, because we’ve only just resumed last year. Some other teams have been going for up to 9 years, so really for where we’re at, we’ve got a lot to strive for, and I think we’ll get there, but it’ll just take a little bit of time. We’re on the right track.”
The Waverley Blues women’s side will open their year in Round 2 (after a bye in Round 1) against East Burwood, in an Elimination final re-match from last season. The Rams get their chance for revenge on the Blues at East Burwood Reserve on Saturday the 27th of April.
