By Tyler Lewis
Noble Park is ‘chips in’ for the 2022 Eastern Football League silverware.
When local football was canned last season, the Bulls were in second place with an 8-2 record and had first-seed Vermont well and truly in their sights.
Noble Park coach Steve Hughes modestly stated his side is initially focusing on its first block of the season, while admitting his side has ‘aggressive goals’ for the upcoming season.
“I think we demonstrated last year that we’re good enough to beat most sides,” he said.
“It’s a very tight competition, we were sitting second when Covid hit in August, about to play Vermont for top spot that weekend.
“I think that probably demonstrates we’re thereabouts, with that in mind we will have aggressive goals for sure.
“It’s easy to say ‘let’s go out and win a premiership’, but we have a tough first four or five weeks, it’s about getting off to a good start.
“We have some difficult games early on, so we will really focus on our first little block and try sit inside the top four or five at the end of that, with the end goal of playing finals footy,” Hughes said.
If there was any weakness of the Noble Park outfit in 2021, it was on the goal-kicking front, with Ziggie Alwan leading the side with just 11 majors.
But the Bulls have filled the gaps, bringing back goal-kicking machine Shayne Allan, adding zippy forward Jack Francis and expecting further development out others.
Francis kicked 32 majors in just 11 games for Chelsea last season, a goal-kicking feat no Bulls player has accomplished since Piva Wright in 2018 (38).
“I think our midfield is as strong as anyone’s, defensively we’re sound and that’s what underpins our game style, we’re a defence first mentality team,” Hughes said.
“But yeah probably our gap last year was our consistency with our goal-kicking, Shayne (Allan) will obviously help to that.
“We have also recruited Jack Francis from Chelsea, who I coached against when I coached Bonbeach a few years back.
“He is a good young talented medium sized forward; he might add a few (goals) for us as well. He is winning a lot of our time-trials and is fitting in well with the group.
“But also the development of players as well on the list, like Ben Marson, who I probably call out as having one of the better pre-seasons of anyone in our group.
“I think he will naturally kick a few more, I think he kicked three or four in the first quarter against Blackburn last year in what I thought was the game of the year, and he is only a young fella, Benny.
“There will be improvements there with our goal-kicking, if there was a gap for us last year, that was probably it,” he said.
As presumably all local footy clubs are at this stage, Noble Park are rapt to have a much cleaner run at the upcoming football season.
“There is a level of excitement that we’re getting a bit closer now,” Hughes said.
“Our boys are head down, bum up, getting stuck into it.
“I think the hard yards are behind us now, that was a difficult period for not only our players but all local footballers, going through that pre-Christmas stuff again.
“That’s effectively all we’ve done for the best part of two years, train.
“We came back a couple weeks back and we have something within reach now… you have to be mentally strong to have gone through what they have, but I think they’re pretty keen to get stuck into it now,” he said.
The Bulls will play Beaconsfield in their first practice match on March 12 before travelling to Rowville for round 1 on April 9.
The clash will be a massive moment for the Bulls, with club champion Kyle Martin expected to play his 150th game.
