Tara Murray
It’s a changing of the guard for Keilor in the Essendon District Football League premier division.
Having had a consistent group of stars in recent times, which helped the club win two premierships, many of those faces have moved on.
Now the Blues are starting to look to the future.
Blues coach Mick McGuane said it was an exciting time for the club.
“We’ll be a lot younger side this season,” he said. “There will be a lot of opportunities.
“You can’t question the integrity of the likes of [Dean] Galea, [Jamie] Papalia, [David] Isbister, [David] Gourdis, [Jesse] Wallin and further back [Andrew] Browne and [Dylan] Joyce.
“They all went about their footy the right way and are premiership players. It’s changing of the guard as they couldn’t go on forever.
“They’re playing at lesser levels or in some cases have retired.”
The Blues midfield on paper remains one of the strongest in the competition on paper.
Nick O’Kearney will be joined in the middle by Brett Stillman, who returns from injury and Kane Barbuto, whose work commitments now allow him to play.
Former AFL player Corey Ellis, has committed to the club full time, having made his senior debut last season.
Damian Cavka, who played in Keilor Park’s division 2 premiership, returns to his junior club.
“We’ll look to those guys to lead the way,” McGuane said. “We need to have some depth in the middle and not have two or three overstaying their welcome.
“We have some pretty good numbers and we’ll see some young guys through there.
“Some of the older statesmen will play a few different roles which is exciting for us.”
Joel Sadler and James Bailey are two players that McGuane said they expected to step up this season.
While the Blues midfield is full of familiar faces, the forward line will have a new look. Matthew Clark, who won the league goal kicking last year, will be a key target up there.
But other players like Galea, Papalia and Stevenson are no longer there.
McGuane said they would have a different dynamic and it would be a bit different early in the season and see how it goes.
Having missed finals just once since 2014, the Blues have been one of the top sides for a number of years.
McGuane said they were unsure how the season would play out this year.
“We’ll see how it goes,” he said. “We have no idea what will happen.
“We play each week to win, this year will be no different.”
The Blues kicked off the season on Good Friday, in its annual match against Strathmore.
It was a big win for the Blues, taking the points 17.16 (118)-6.9 (45) against the reigning premiers.
Nick O’Kearney was judged best afield.
Strathmore got the points in the women’s match, between last season’s premier and division 1 premiers.
The Mores winning, 2.5 (17)-1.7 (13).
In the other women’s premier division match, Oak Park beat Hillside 8.8 (56)-1.1 (7).
In the men’s division 1 competition, Hillside and Craigieburn got wins against Keilor Park and Craigieburn respectively.
