IT’S not that easy for a club like Greenvale to go under the radar.
All has been very quiet up at Section Road following the Jets’ disappointing grand final loss to Aberfeldie last year, with very little list turnover taking place over the summer.
The departures of Stephen Brewer and Ozgur Uysal are going to hurt Greenvale’s midfield, while Tallan Wright leaves behind a 26-goal gap in the forward line.
The Jets will welcome back stalwarts Dean Smith, James Rohan and Rhys Johnson, but coach Paul Chapman isn’t too concerned about the lack of fresh faces coming into the club.
“Head down, bum up,” he quipped.
“We’re training hard and just doing our thing.”
Chapman admits those three departures “will hurt”, but there is a silver lining that he is looking forward to.
“Last year, to have a reserves team go undefeated and win a grand final says that the depth is there,” Chapman told essendondfl.com.au.
“There were probably a few stiff guys that didn’t get an opportunity last year.
“Guys probably got starved of (senior) opportunities, but they were great.
“They weren’t negative or anything, they were very positive with how they were playing and we’re still working with those guys to improve their game and I think that’s the exciting thing for the Greenvale Footy Club and myself, that we’ve got a lot of young guys who are quite capable of stepping up.”
Like the reserves, Greenvale’s seniors did finish on top of the ladder last year and were the favourites for the flag with skipper Addam Maric in the form of his life, kicking 64 home-and-away goals from midfield.
However, injuries began to pile up at the wrong end of the season, with star defender Courtenay Dempsey missing the grand final with a calf and Maric struggling to make an impact after damaging his hamstring in the prelim.
Both are now back on the track, but Dempsey could still miss Round 1 with a knee complaint.
Chapman says Maric is on-track for Round 1 at home to Avondale Heights.
“He’s been hitting the weights pretty hard so he’s actually quite big,” Chapman said of Maric.
“We don’t imagine we’ll see Addam in Round 1 at where he was at the mid-point of last year.
“It might take him a little while to work into it and to get that form back, but we’re not expecting him to be at that level from the start.
“We’re also expecting him to play a bit of a different role than what he did last year, just to try and help his body out a little bit – but we still need him to be close to the level that he was last year if we’re going to be as competitive as we were in 2017.”
Key Ins: Dean Smith (Oak Park), James Rohan (Powelltown) & Rhys Johnson (Powelltown)
Keys Outs: Ozgur Uysal (West Preston), Tallan Wright (Hepburn) & Stephen Brewer (East Malvern)
First Month: Avondale Heights (home), Strathmore (away), Glenroy (home) & Aberfeldie (away)
