2014 Year 8s

year8s

Well boys another year has come and gone already! I bet you all didn’t think the season would fly by so fast when you were doing your wind sprints and time trials on a Thursday night.

Let me start by thanking the myriad of people who helped make my job so easy and enjoyable this year. One of the more difficult roles is that of Team Manager and when all looked lost Rose put her hand up and volunteered, she initially wasn’t confident and thought it may be a bit too much however she came through with flying colors and did a fantastic job all year. Thanks Rose. In no particular order I would also like to thank these other people for helping out week in week out. Geoff Rule on first aid, Kim Thomas as our boundary umpire( not as though he needed the run) Vicki Potter on doing the all important interchange job, Paul Mannix as our unofficial time keeper (this helped immensely with our time on ground requirements ) our runners Steve Eyers and Brendan Miller who carried out the messages sent by Graeme and myself with great enthusiasm and expertise, all other parents who assisted in canteen, goal umpire timing etc etc. Last and not least Fitzy, who without we would not have been able to achieve the ultimate success as his assistance both at training and game days allowed me to focus on what I needed to do to give the boys the best chance to succeed. Thanks mate.

We started the season with 20 boys on our list but were happy to have Juno come and join us early into the season which gave us 21 , that was until Liam broke his thumb and we were down to 20 again. Other injuries during the season also hampered our list with Brownie out with a broken rib, Cammy Alexander with a broken collar bone and a couple of weeks when boys couldn’t play for family reasons. This situation was rectified with the help of a number of year seven boys who came up and played with us. All of those boys played with enthusiasm and competence and our thanks goes not only to them but Ian and Mark ( year seven coaches ) who allowed them to fill in.

I would also like to congratulate Kyle, Lachy Fitz and Kody for being picked in the East Fremantle development squad and wish them well in the try outs!

Kyle Potter also deserves a special mention in being awarded the Runner Up award Fairest and Best in the district at the award night held at East Fremantle on the 11th August, if not for missing a couple of weeks with holidays and our coaching style early in the year of moving him out of the middle so as to try and teach him other facets of the game, I believe he could have quite easily been announced the winner. Dylan Veitch also needs to be congratulated on polling extremely well in this count.

Our coaching mantra this season was “Team Before Self” and those of you who watched the first game and then our last I hope saw that the boys over time embrace this and at the end of the day it resulted in the ultimate success. I spoke to all the boys one on one at the start of the season to see what they wanted to get out of the year, what position they preferred to play and also discussed individually what they needed to work on to improve their personal performance. I would like to think as individuals that they have improved both as footballers and young men over this season and have to come to understand that it takes a team to have team success not a small group of individuals.

Boys, I couldn’t be more proud of you and you will ALWAYS be known now as PREMIERS 2014 !!!

Thanks for a great year.
Tony Grosse (Coach)