By ROY WARD
EACH year Oakleigh Chargers ask their players to “write their own history”.
Last season’s team wrote a rich tale, winning the TAC Cup premiership with a golden point from Jackson Macrae, who now plies his trade with AFL club Western Bulldogs.
Only seven premiership players remain on the Chargers’ 64-player list this season and while coach Justin Wenke admits his side will be targeted this season, he wants his side to forge its own reputation of excellence throughout the year.
“We have a strong theme this year to be harder to play against compared to last year,” he said.
“We have identified parts of our game we wanted to improve on and off field. We want to improve on how we prepare for the draft and those things.
“The winning side of things takes care of itself. The kids really drive that, we just want to drive the structures and development work.”
Wenke had a late start with the Chargers last year after being appointed later in the off-season so having a full preparation has already made him believe the side will be better placed to begin the season than last year.
“No doubt it helped, we are a lot more organised,” Wenke said.
“The feedback from the players is that our structures are working better at this time of year than last year and we have educated our players a lot better and done a lot of classroom stuff and education by way of viewing video.
“We have also taken it further with having a tackling coach come on in a part-time role along with having VFL academy coach Darren Flanagan work with our rucks and tall forwards and Box Hill team of the century back man David Banfield work individually with our defenders.”
As always, the Chargers will be routed when the best players begin representative duties and private school players return to their school teams, but Wenke still believes he has a strong list once again.
AIS squad members Jack Billings and Tom Cutler will be available for round 1 and then not return until round 13 while the Chargers traditionally lose a large number of players after the early rounds to private school matches.
Three Chargers are also only just returning to the field after off-season injuries, with Jay Kennedy-Harris, Kieran Nolan and Mitchell Donoghue all expected to return in the first few rounds following shoulder operations.
The Chargers have also selected four tall players as their over-age players, with ruckman James Toohey, key forward Nick Prowse, Nolan and 209-centimetre ruckman Angus Milham filling those places.
The Chargers begin their season against Eastern Ranges at Visy Park this Sunday at 12.30pm.
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