By ROY WARD
NO matter who runs out for Dingley this Southern Football League division 1 season, one this is certain.
The Dingoes are expected to be among the top teams in the competition.
After a couple of promising seasons, the young Dingoes have some significant expectations on them in 2013 and, with some promising signings to boot, coach Shane Morwood wants his side to improve on their five-point elimination final loss in the previous season.
“What we need is to get better and we need to be successful and beat those top teams,” he said.
“We lost out by a small margin in the finals last year. We got a win and a loss against St Paul’s. We beat Cheltenham and were competitive against East Brighton and Chelsea Heights, so we’re not far off. With an influx of new players, the expectation is really a lot higher on us this year than in other years. It’s time to act.”
What remains uncertain for the Dingoes is how much impact recruits Luke Forrest (Alberton FNL) and Tom Dureau (Port Melbourne VFL) will have on the side.
Both players got little game time during the preseason. Their arrival offsets the losses of Daniel Turcarelli (EFL), Ben Arnold (Alberton FNL) and Shane Gotsch. Jack Clausen looks likely to spend part or all of the year with VFL club Frankston Dolphins.
Morwood said Clausen would play with the Dingoes if not selected for the Dolphins.
“We’re still a little bit unsure because we lost a couple of players from last season and picked up four or maybe five players, but they haven’t played too much just yet.
“Forrest is a 190-centimetre player who could play at either end or in the ruck for us. Dureau did his hamstring about three weeks ago right before our first practice match, so we haven’t seen him play as yet, but we expect him to be quite good.
“Things are going all right so far and we look to be in a good position.
“Our young kids look to have taken another step since the end of last season.”
The Dingoes open their season against East Malvern at Souter Oval at 2pm this Saturday.
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