South Mandurah will look to blood several younger players into league football in 2017, but their eyes remain fixed on a finals finish.
The Falcons have lost some key players from their side that lost the 2016 elimination final, but with a premiership winning colts side waiting to come through the ranks they are well-positioned to remain strong in the coming seasons.
Brendon Jones, Cameron Lilly and Aaron Hitchcock have all departed from the Falcons’ nest, but returning to the blue and yellow jerseys is Andrew Haydon and Brent Johnson.
Haydon spent the 2016 season playing at Peel Thunder and both he and Johnson will be handy senior inclusions to a team looking to rely more heavily on its youth stocks.
“I’ve been really impressed with the way our pre-season has gone and how the younger guys have progressed,” head coach Daniel Haines said.
“The colts premiership side coming through had a lot of talented kids in it so we’ll look to get more games into them this year.”
But Haines isn’t letting the youth factor get in the way of the side’s finals ambitions.
“We’ll definitely aim to play finals,” he said.
“We were really disappointed with the way last year ended so we’re keen to get back there and have another red hot crack.”
It’s been a busy pre-season for the Falcons, who will play their fourth and final scratch match this weekend.
They’ve traveled to play South West Football League side South Bunbury, and hosted Maddington.
Haines said he was impressed with the play of his young brigade in the tune-up games.
“Some of the boys have had great games in the scratch matches and getting games into their legs is really important for us,” he said.
“Brody Wemm kicked six goals in our last game and he’s been really good on the training track.”
Wemm led the colts competition in goal-kicking in 2016.
South Mandurah kick their season off with a game against Centrals in Mundijong on April 1.