By RUSSELL BENNETT
ONE thing is for sure – Emerald’s senior football side this season will have a distinctly younger feel.
But that doesn’t mean the Bombers won’t be busting down the finals door according to player-coach Josh Taylor.
The side has had a rollercoaster 18 months.
After winning the Yarra Valley Mountain District Football League (YVMDFL) Division 2 premiership in 2011, the Bombers last year started a new era in Division 1 right where they left off in the second tier.
Emerald sat in third spot on the Division 1 ladder at the mid-way point of 2012 but then lost six games in a row and was forced to fight off relegation as a seemingly harsh winter took hold of the Bombers’ Chandler Reserve home ground – reducing it to a boggy mess.
“I’m not going to be stupid and say the ground is the reason we didn’t play finals,” Taylor said recently during Bombers pre-season training at Cockatoo’s Mountain Road Reserve.
“But when you’re a quick running side that likes to move the footy fast and you’re playing in ankle-deep mud, it makes it pretty hard.
“When we’re up and running, we’re pretty hard to stop and that’s only going to get better with these younger guys we’ve got coming through.”
Emerald lost eight games by 14 points or less last season – essentially the difference between finishing second, or second last.
But an exciting crop of youngsters making their way into the senior side promises to energise the Bombers, exciting Taylor for what might just be in store for his team.
The coach admitted to having a lean off-season when it came to landing big-name transfers from other clubs, but he still snared one big fish – albeit a familiar one – in the process.
“We made plenty of phone calls but we were often let down at the last minute,” Taylor said.
“We had a couple of midfielders pretty much ready to go but we just couldn’t get them over the line.”
Emerald’s 2011 premiership ball-magnet Steve Wright is back at his old stomping ground after a year testing his mettle with Eastern Football League (EFL) Division 1 side Lilydale.
“He’s a massive in,” Taylor said simply.
“He’s in his early to mid-20s, won two best-and-fairests before I came back up here to coach and he was also runner-up in our premiership year.
“He’s good for 30 to 40 touches per game.”
Though Wright missed much of last year with a wrist injury, Taylor said he would be “pretty dominant” once he gets up and running early this season.
Classy utility Justin Davis arrives at Emerald after stints at Hampton Park with Taylor, and most recently at Rowville.
He looks set to slot into Emerald’s high-rotation midfield alongside former Beaconsfield under-18 best-and-fairest winner Connell Jacobson and former Eagles team mate Brayden Hamilton.
The Bombers have lost experienced heads Brook Kennedy, Clinton Yapp, Shane Buhmann and Luke Nunan but Taylor said the recent influx of youngsters had made his core of 23 and 24-year-olds really step up to the plate.
He singled out Jack Preston, reigning under-18s best-and-fairest winner Tom Faulkner, and last season’s Most Consistent Player Mikey Dompietro as the standouts over the Bombers’ pre-season.
As for the teams to beat in Division 1 this season? Taylor warned against overlooking Belgrave, which is fresh off its Division 2 flag win.
“You’re a bit of a sleeping giant when you come up from Division 2,” Taylor said. “There’s no doubt we got the jump on a few teams early last year.
“It’s hard when you come up because you don’t really know opposition players, but then again no one knows you either.”
Taylor is also wary of local rivals and 2012 grand finalist Gembrook Cockatoo, but tipped Wandin to be the competition’s big improvers this season after the Bulldogs snared the prized signature of dominant All-Australian midfielder Matt Dyer from Boolarra in the Mid Gippsland league.
In other news out of the Bombers, the club will soon be holding regular bingo nights at Clematis’s Paradise Hotel in an effort to reach its $200,000 fundraising target for its new Chandler Reserve clubrooms.
The bingo nights will be held every Monday night from 15 April, with more than $1000 in prize money up for grabs for local community members who come along and take part.
Emerald Football Netball Club has so far raised about $150,000 of its $200,000 target.
For more information, search for ‘Emerald FNC’ on Facebook.
