Tara Murray
Sunshine has been busy adding key players and depth to the club in the Western Region Football League division 1 off season.
After a shortened season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in just three wins and finishing second bottom, the Kangaroos were keen to add to their list for next year.
Coach Heath Scotland said having had a season to assess the side and see where they were at had been really important heading into next season.
“We’re really pleased with the recruiting so far,” he said.
“We’ve got nine new players and had nine or10 last season, the turn around in my one and half years has been really big.
“I’ll look to add four or five more players for next year. We’ve done a lot of hard working recruiting.”
Scotland said the biggest thing for them heading forward was adding some more depth. He said on paper, their best side would have been in the finals mix, but they weren’t able to produce the results they wanted.
Getting the best team on the park was an issue, with the side not finding their feet until the middle of the year when they won three straight games.
“To a degree we limped into the season and didn’t win some games we should have,” he said.
“We had eight unavailable in round one and I didn’t think it would get worse.We had 10 unavailable in round two and 12 unavailable in round three.
“We didn’t have the depth there. We had a couple of good younger players, who are good servants.
“The effort was there all year.
“That’s why we need to develop the kids underneath and we’re adding senior players and depth players.“
Leading the Kangaroos’ signings are players with state league experience.
Midfielder Ethan Jackson is making the move from Tasmania and is set to be aligned with Werribee’s Victorian Football League side.
Tom Mundy, who was 23rd man in Williamstown’s VFL grand final in 2019, has signed on full time, and is bringing a couple of mates.
Another former VFL player Hisham Kerbatieh as well as Taygen Dennison, Lachie Williams, Jack Ballantyne and Adeola Akintola are among other signings.
Scotland said the club targeted younger players to build a list around and help take the club to the next level.
“We want to be competitive and play at the pointy end of the season,” he said.
“We’re quite optimistic.”
In another good sign for the Kangaroos, the club will have an under-18 team next year after not fielding one this year.
Scotland said it had been a priority for the club heading into 2022.
“We’re slowly building and we’ve got the 18s up and going,” he said.
“It was a priority for us to get the 18s up and going, with the main driving factor to be the feeder into our senior team.”
Scotland said there were already 21 players committed for the under-18 team and were confident of it going ahead.
The club is still looking for more players for the side.
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