MELTON Warriors might need a bit of a pick-me-up to get the Victorian Rugby Union second division A grade side out of its premiership hangover.
With last year’s victory in second division B grade came promotion, but also an exodus on and off-field of Melton stalwarts and veterans who had toiled for their entire careers to end the Warriors’ quarter-century premiership drought.
A new-look team was beaten 44-7 by Geelong at the weekend and will look to jell in the coming weeks.
Conceding five first-half tries was a less-than-ideal way to start the season but club captain Kieren Dalziell said the second-half improvement from his team was noticeable.
First XV captain Dennis Joubert crossed for the Warriors’ only try, while Kimba Tipeneriki kicked the conversion.
Dalziell, a Melton junior, played for four years at the club before missing the premiership season while playing in Sydney last year.
He said his return to the club had coincided with a swathe of new players jumping into the squad.
“We’ve got 34 to pick from, a huge amount of players,” Dalziell said. “But we’ve lost leaders and starting players from last year. Saturday was the first real game for a number of players.”
Dalziell said the new faces at the club would move on quickly and focus on the season at hand. “I’ll remember (last year) more than others because I missed it,” he said.
“But there are so many new people, a bit over half the team.”
Dalziell said Geelong was fitter and better drilled, but the margin between the teams would not be as big when next they met.
“There’s no way that Geelong are a 35 points better team than us,” he said.
“Even in the second half, once we got things together the improvement was dramatic.”
Melton plays Northern in its first home game of the season at MacPherson Park on Saturday. Kick-off is 3.10pm.
