Wyndhamvale is hoping to do what it couldn’t last season and make finals in the Western Region Football League division 2 competition.
Last season the Falcons finished in fifth position, just a win outside of a finals position. They were right up to the standard of finals football too, coming within a point or better of all four finalists.
The Falcons went down to eventual premiers Parkside, and third placed Newport by just a point, while beating fourth placed Sunshine by a point, and runners up Albion by 15.
While this off season has had its challenges for the Falcons, in a bigger competition excitement is building at Wyndhamvale South Oval.
“We look forward to it (round one) with a bit of nervousness, you never know what’s going to happen,” co-coach Rob May said.
“We were a bit disappointed with the way we finished last year, not making finals. But hopefully this year is a different ball game.
“We’re definitely keen to get into it and hopefully can get off to a good start.”
The Falcons haven’t been the destination club they were hoping to be over the summer, with recruitment being a challenge and some players walking out the door.
“That’s probably been the most disappointing thing over the pre-season,” May said.
“We’ve lost a few players unfortunately due to work, moving and some guys who probably lacked a bit of motivation playing.
“We’ve been pretty unlucky in that sense and we haven’t recruited much at all… we’ve got enough that we believe we can cover that anyway.”
However, there is still youth that is poised to shoot through at the club with some getting an opportunity at the senior level last season.
“We played a couple last year in a handful of games and they’ll obviously be better for the run this year,” May said.
“We had a couple of guys that were injured for the majority of the year that only really played reserves football that can definitely play senior football.”
May said there is a level of the unknown facing clubs that were previously in division 3 in the upcoming season. While he said while he expects some one sided performances, it doesn’t mean games won’t still have their challenges.
“I’m not going to be silly about it, Albion and Sunshine are the front runners at the moment,” he said. “But on any given day any side can beat anyone. So if you’re not up to it on the day you’re going to struggle.
“Without knowing every side we’ve got to go in with our style of play and our ideas on how we want to play and hopefully implement them and that’s good enough to beat these sides.”
