THE countdown is on for the biggest representative game of local footy in recent memory.
Next weekend the EDFL’s best take on the finest from the highly-respected Eastern Football League at Bayswater Oval.
Two-time Maribyrnong Park premiership coach Brodie Holland is coaching the EDFL this year after Keilor coach Mick McGuane led the league to back-to-back interleague victories over the Southern and Goulburn Valley Football Leagues.
We caught up with Holland as he prepares for the May 13 monster clash.
Brodie, how is this year’s Interleague Program coming along so far?
Yeah, it’s going pretty well. We’ve had two really good sessions so far. Obviously it’s challenging with this type of program to try to get the players to do enough training together so that they get to know each other and connect with each other, so that’s been a bit of a challenge and it always is. But we’ve had two pretty solid sessions and we’re getting enough commitment from enough quality players to suggest we’re going to be able to put a pretty solid side together.
What were your impressions of the EFL’s squad when that came out?
We’ve been getting a lot of help from our opposition coach Andrew Gibson and he’s giving us a lot of feedback on certain individuals. We’re aware of the likes of a James Gwilt, Jonathan Simpkin, Farren Ray and so forth, so they have a few ex-AFL guys in the mix. We obviously won’t know much more about their squad until a couple of days before game-time.
CLICK HERE for EFL Squad.
It must be handy to have someone like Gibbo in the coaching staff…
Yeah obviously Gibbo’s done a fair bit of coaching over his journey at Williamstown in the VFL and Montrose there in the EFL and he knows their competition pretty well. So he’s a great asset for us and for me, because he’ll be my eyes and ears leading into the game from an opposition point of view.
Are you trying to implement any particular theme or focus for this year’s campaign?
The key message for us is that this is the time to give back to local footy. There are a lot of ex-AFL guys that are the mix, there are a lot of high-quality ex-VFL players who have played a lot of VFL, and then you’ve got the elite local footy players, and our message has been that this is time to give back to the EDFL and to local footy and really commit to the cause. But the whole theme for the five-week block for us has been about opportunity and enjoyment. Obviously if we can win this game we go into the playoff to be the top local league in Victoria, but it’s also the enjoyment factor. We want the players to come in and see this as a chance to break away from their local club, do something different, get around some of the other elite local players and just enjoy that experience more than anything.
What sort of brand of footy can we expect to see from this EDFL team?
Obviously we won’t give a whole lot away in terms of game plan and look, the game plan’s not going to be overly complicated anyway when you’ve only got five training sessions together. We’ll want to make it quite basic and simple for the group. But in terms of the way we want to present ourselves as a group, we want to be professional in our approach, hence why we brought David Buttifant on as a fitness guru and Head of Fitness in this program. He’ll be managing injuries and so forth, and we’ve got a great coaching group as well that comes with that… and there’s a lot of experience there, too. So it’s about professionalism and doing everything right, making sure we look like a professional outfit and then obviously playing accordingly on the day. We want to represent the EDFL in the right manner and everyone knows that we’re not just a strong league but we’re also very professional in the way we go about things.
Who are some of the on-field leaders that have led the way at training?
Stephen Brewer’s someone that’s been around a while and played a lot of VFL footy and he’s been a top-liner with Greenvale for a number of years now. He’s certainly stood up and put his hand up to take on a potential leadership role moving into this game. Robbie Castello will be helping out with coaching in this game but in terms of getting around the boys and setting the right culture, he’s been really good. Then you’ve got guys like Fort Caruso that just really want to be part of it and they’ve put their hand up really early in the piece wanting to be part of this group and this game. Unfortunately because of niggles and injuries we probably won’t be able to pick from everybody but this is probably as strong a group as we’ve put together since the inception of this particular program, so it’ll be interesting to see what we can put together and I’m looking forward to putting a leadership group together as well leading into this game.
Finally, are you enjoying being back part of the EDFL family?
I am, absolutely. Part of me wanting to this was getting back into coaching, but firstly the main thing is the EDFL and Maribyrnong Park gave me the opportunity to transition from the AFL into local footy and post-career, so it’s my chance to give back to the league and hopefully I can reward the league with a big win and thank them for the opportunities they’ve given me in the past. It’s time for all of us to give back to the game.
