New Melton coach Brad Murphy is confident his side can improve on its one-win season last year, with some new recruits and improved fitness the keys.
Murphy, who joined the Bloods after a successful tenure at Hoppers Crossing, has enjoyed his first pre-season in charge.
“Everyone’s pretty excited around the club and itching to get into the games,” he said.
“We’ve wrapped up our pre-season and played a bit of a scratch match and I was pretty impressed, to be honest.
“There’s some good signs and some blokes putting their hands up for senior selection who haven’t been looked at for the past couple of years.”
Last year was one to forget for the Bloods. They registered just one win on their way to second-last spot.
But Murphy believes the raw figures don’t tell the full story.
“Everyone sees the ladder position, and that’s not ideal,” he said. “But what I saw was a club with a lot of young talent and a good record up until half-time in most games.
“Fitness was an issue, and maybe a bit of leadership. We’ve tried to arrest those problems by getting some new people into the club, some new coaches and new fitness guys … that all seems to be working so far.”
Melton used professional sprinter Peter Walsh as their fitness coach during the summer, building the club’s running base and increasing the players’ speed and endurance.
The Bloods have also been active on the recruiting front, most notably picking up 206cm ruckman Brayden Sneddon from Ocean Grove.
While Murphy is confident of improvement, he’s not keen to set limits on how the club will perform.
“I’ll be happy with improvement, and that includes ladder positions but also individual improvement and team improvement,” Murphy said.
“We could finish second-bottom again or we could be in the top half; it’s really hard to say.
“But from what I’ve seen in the pre-season, I’ll be very surprised if we weren’t pushing up the ladder this year.”
