Tara Murray
Werribee has some good selection dilemmas heading into the opening round of the Victorian Football League season this weekend.
After four practice matches and with the majority of the squad having played throughout the pre-season, Werribee coach Michael Barlow said they would have a tough time picking a team for the opening round.
“It’s been a fairly slow build up,” he said. “We haven’t played since the middle of last year.
“Everyone who has been available for selection in terms of fitness has had a chance to represent the club which is great.
“We played four practice matches and most of the guys who are in the squad this week will have played two and half or three matches.”
Barlow said as the pre-season progressed that the performances within the games had done the same.
He said they were still tinkering with some things ahead of the season kicking off.
“We’ve been building with an on field performance and we’ll continue to tinker with it and make positional adjustments.
“We started with our younger line up, before moving to a more experienced lineup on Friday.
“It was a relatively full strength side.
“We’ve been finding out about individuals and identifying our brand of style and still working on a lot of things.”
Barlow said they were likely to pick a preliminary squad of about 28 to 30, before making a decision on the final 23 later in the week.
He said having a similar list to the last couple of seasons, there would be players who had stepped up in the off season and pushing for a more permanent positions
“Tom Boyd has most established his body and has been playing as the second or third key tall defender,” he said.
“Keegan Gray is another one. He’ll miss this week after being concussed in our last game.”
Barlow said another one of the standouts on the track during the pre-season had been new co-captain Tom Gribble who was keen to better himself and bring his teammates along with him.
Werribee starts its season on Saturday night against Frankston.
