By Lance Jenkinson
In some respects, Michael Sodomaco feels like this is his inaugural season as captain of Werribee.
Of course it’s not, he was a crucial part of the leadership structure when Werribee was aligned with AFL club North Melbourne.
However, the 27-year-old utility feels he has more ownership over the stand-alone team, even though he has empowered the group on the whole to take on leadership responsibilities and played down his own role within the structure.
“In many ways, it’s my first year as captain,” Sodomaco said. “As captain of an aligned club, I guess you’re really only leading five players because the other 16 belong to another footy club.
“This year has been fantastic, it’s been really rewarding and challenging of course.
“I said at the start of the year to the players, the impact that I have is a little bit overrated.
“At the end of the day, I’m just another player, but I’m more interested in helping them get the best out of themselves and anything we achieve will be done as a group.”
Sodomaco has played his part in overseeing significant change at Werribee.
Having such respected figures as Sodomaco, coach John Lamont and football operations manager Stuart Balloch ensured a smooth transition back to stand-alone status for the playing group.
“It’s been a huge amount of change,” Sodomaco said.
“In the space of one season, we’ve gone into a new facility, we’ve gone to a stand-alone side and then we’ve had the VFL scrap the development league.
“They’re three big things that change a lot of things around the club.”
Four wins so far is not where Werribee wanted to be, but it is a by-product of the changes that occurred over the pre season.
Sodomaco believes his team is set for a vastly improved season next season with added stability this upcoming off season.
“I feel like we’re building something really good, but we’ve had some teething problems first year going to stand-alone and getting a feel for each other,” he said.
“There’s a few results that could’ve gone the other way with a bit more chemistry and understanding of the way we wanted to play earlier in the year.
“I don’t think it’s anything drastic that we need to change, we just need to keep chipping away at the things we’ve already identified and make sure each player is getting better individually and the sum of the parts will add up to more wins.
“We’re poised for [a big season] next year, as long as we can finish off this year pretty well and tighten up a few things in our game.”
