There’ll be plenty of new faces when Melton South runs out for its first match, with the club hoping a revamped list and improved club culture will drive it to greater heights this year.
Melton South coach Mathew Sutton says that after finishing eighth last year in the Ballarat Football League’s top division, he’s been impressed with the way his squad has attacked pre-season training.
“It’s been very solid,” Sutton said. “The results probably spoke for themselves last year and we did get scored heavily against so we’ve really focused in on that and it’s worked well.
“We’ve got a lot of kids who just want to learn, which is fantastic.”
Sutton’s seen a big turnover of players over the summer, but he says most of the list changes have been for the better in the long term.
“Our discipline was lacking at times, and that’s been an ongoing thing so we had to let go of some players because of it,” Sutton said. “At the end of the day it can’t be about one or two or three players, it’s got to be about the whole list.
“We’ve got a really good crop of kids coming through and we need to have the right coaches and leaders in place to be good role models for them.”
Among the new faces at the club is VFL triumvirate Shaun White, Anthony Piva and Matt Sullivan, with Sullivan taking on the added responsibility of captaincy.
“You’ve obviously got to recruit on ability, but they’ve also got to fit into your culture and that’s where we’ve really focused,” Sutton said.
“We were lucky to get the ones we wanted, but there were plenty that we knocked back because they wouldn’t fit into what this club is about. The blokes we picked up this year have been outstanding.”
After its disappointing 2013 season, Sutton said the club expected to improve and hopefully contend for a coveted finals place.
“We want to play finals football and we’ve set ourselves for that,” Sutton said.
“We had a great camp up in Ballarat earlier in the year and the boys have set some goals they want to achieve, and now we just want to get stuck in.”
