On the eve of GCFC’s debut season in the VFL, GCFC senior coach Guy McKenna says the club is under no illusions about the challenges faced by his talented young list when it comes up against battle-hardened men for the first time.
Speaking after a spritely training session at the club’s Carrara headquarters, McKenna says as challenging as the coming year will be, a broader strategic imperative is in play.
‘It’s all about working up skills and building physical size to match men,’ he says.
‘This year we'll be coming up against twenty-three year olds so everything we do is all about making sure they get the most out of those experiences and learning lessons that they can take on into 2011.’
McKenna says getting the utmost out of this year’s playing experience is vital if the club is to be competitive in its first AFL season.
‘This year is only part of the journey. The AFL competition will be another massive jump. AFL players are going to be bigger and stronger again as well as technically better.’
The club competed in the Under 18 TAC cup last year. It finished fifth and won a qualifying final before bowing out to 17-1 minor premier, Geelong Falcons, a week later.
This year, barring the inclusion of high profile ex-Cat Nathan Ablett, ex-Kangaroo Daniel Harris, and former Collingwood rookies Sam Iles and Danny Stanley, GCFC will take on the VFL competition with a squad comprised mainly of seventeen and eighteen year olds. Some are still at school.
Despite their relative youth, McKenna says the squad’s physical development is tracking nicely.
‘The boys are progressing well,’ he says.
‘Under [fitness coach] Andrew Weller, some of the boys have put on four or five kilos and as long as they are putting that kind of weight on in the right areas we should be looking pretty good.’
McKenna points to the advancement of the club’s youngest player, David Swallow. Younger brother of 2009 North Melbourne Best and Fairest, Andrew Swallow, David joined the club as a sixteen year old ‘apprentice’ last year. With the club guaranteed nine of the top twenty picks in the 2010 AFL Draft, and with Swallow a near-certainty to be selected, GCFC convinced David to join its list early to get a head start with his training.
‘At seventeen years old Dave’s already built like what we call a ‘man-child’ so he’s a good example,’ McKenna says.
‘He was tackling Dan Harris the other day and really ripped into him. Dan has 150-odd AFL games under his belt. We have to keep pinching ourselves that Dave’s so young.’
McKenna says a combination of physical and mental maturity in the clubs early years will set things up.
‘There’s a few AFL sides – maybe four or five of them – that are positioned well to cope with the introduction of GCFC next year and Greater Western Sydney a few years down the track,’ he says.
‘Those who aren’t as well positioned will need to trade heavily. We’ll have an influx of uncontracted players coming in this year. In two or three years time, our young guys – the best young talent in the country – will be twenty-one or twenty-two instead of eighteen or nineteen. You add all that together and think of it in terms of developing a list of players, you’d think we’d be up near the top. The window will be well ajar, as they say.’
