By Nick Creely
A revamped and rejuvenated Dandenong Stingrays group seems primed to bounce into the 2017 TAC Cup season with vigour after training the house down in their makeshift home at Frankston Park.
With Shepley Oval unavailable over the summer due to Victorian Premier Cricket commitments, the Stingrays made Frankston’s former VFL ground its training base due to the VFL club being booted out of the competition for at least the next two years.
And Stingrays coach Craig Black believes the use of the elite training facility is likely to see his young chargers rewarded from the experience.
“We’ve had a really good pre-season to date – it’s great to have an elite facility in Frankston where we have access to weights and a full-length footy ground – we hope we can see the reward for being able to use it,” he said.
On Monday 20 February, the Stingrays will reduce their list from roughly 90 youngsters to around 60, a tough process not lost on the coach.
“We’ve played an intra-club, a game against Sandringham and we play Murray Bushrangers soon which will be good for us – we finalise our squad with cuts on Monday, which is exciting for some and disappointing for others – you never want to be the bearer of bad news but that’s how it is,” he said.
Black said that the Stingrays set the standards high and want to play finals, but conceded that due to a number of factors, it may influence how they confront the season, one of them being injuries to some of his talented youngsters.
“It’s a tough competition – we played 53 players last year, which is a lot.
“It wasn’t ideal going out in straight-sets but we usually set ourselves a goal of playing two finals – they have changed the finals this year into a knockout which will be different,” he said.
“We obviously want to make the finals – we have five of the AIS Academy players this year, one being Aaron Darling who did his ACL – they did two weeks at an AFL club this year and about a week in Florida.
“Aaron did his knee in November, we have to remember he is a young man with, hopefully, 15 years of footy ahead of him – he has a long way to go.
“He’s been injured before and he is relentless in getting his way back – he will get involved in coaching which will improve his footy as a whole.”
Changes have been made to the coaching structure across the lines, but Black is looking forward to challenging his coaches.
“We lost Wayne Siekman, obviously, to Collingwood to coach their AFLW team – Josh Bourke who was coaching our Under 16s this year has stepped up which is great and will look after the forwards.
“Nathan Harris has gone from forwards to backs, Nick Cox will now go from backs to mids, but it’s exciting for all involved and a challenge,” he said.
The Dandenong Stingrays will kick off their TAC Cup season on 25 March against Gippsland Power, with the match to be played at Morwell Recreation Reserve.
