Tara Murray
Everything that could go wrong has gone for Keilor Park in the early part of the Essendon District Football League division 1 season.
The Devils have lost their first four matches and struggled at times to match it with other sides.
Football manager Scott Kempster said it has been a tough period to start the season.
“It hasn’t been great,” he said. ”We started the season underdone to be fair, with a lot of new players who hadn’t had a lot of sessions together.
“We knew the first game would be tough and we struggled a lot with cohesion and synergy.
“Since then it has all gone pear shaped. Out of that side 12 players have been out with injury.
“The Rupo [Rupertswood] game was a disaster, we lost seven players out of that game.”
Compounding the injuries is the departures of Kyall Parker and Oscar Sasalu since the season has started. Parker has returned to his former club while Sasalu wanted to play at a higher level having made Williamstown’s Victorian Football League list.
Kempster said they had shown some good signs against Roxburgh Park and Tullamarine but hadn’t been able to put it all together.
He said they had shown an improvement in effort and were hoping to see some better results on the scoreboard.
“We’ll get a few back from injury in the next three to four weeks and we should improve in the second half of the season,” he said.
“Hopefully we’ll see a more consistent effort and see the players gel a bit better. It’s not the start that we wanted, but it’s a long season and we’ve got two-thirds of a season to show improvement.
“Every team goes through these bad runs, ours is just at the start of the season.”
The Devils had a much needed bye on the weekend.
Kempster said they had several sore players after Anzac Day and it was a good opportunity to freshen up.
He said the coaching staff were still really positive and hoping to turn things around.
It hasn’t been all bad news for the Devils with their women’s side being really competitive in their return to the competition.
On Anzac Day the side got their first win of the season beating Tullamarine.
Kempster said that win will give them some confidence.
The Devils men this week face a big test this week against Maribyrnong Park.
