Wyndham Suns are bucking the trend of expansion clubs struggling in their first season in the Western Region Football League.
Tarneit Titans, Sanctuary Lakes Sharks and Caroline Springs Lakers all had tough initiations in their inaugural campaigns.
In 2011, the Lakers were 4-12 in their first year in division 2.
A year later, the Sharks performed the best of the previous expansion clubs, ending with a commendable 6-12 record in a tough division 2.
And last year, the Titans managed one win in 18 games and finished bottom of division 3.
In 2013, the Manor Lakes Storm punched above its weight, registering a superb 15-3 season.
The Suns not only have an impressive eight wins, three losses and a draw after 11 rounds but should go on to play finals and could even give the division 3 premiership a shake like the Storm.
Suns rookie senior coach Matthew Stoodley, who came on the club’s radar after taking the Sharks reserves to a premiership last season, is surprised by his club’s rapid progress.
“We’ve gone a lot better than we initially thought we would,” he told Star Weekly.
“We have a really good group of young kids and then some older guys came in to help.”
But the honeymoon is over for the Suns. They may have flown under the radar in the early rounds, but opposition clubs are now aware of their threat and they have lost their past two matches, to lowly North Sunshine and then to rapidly improving Parkside on Saturday.
The Suns’ depth has been tested in recent weeks with a raft of injuries to key players, leaving youngsters to battle out of their weight division in unfamiliar roles.
Stoodley is confident that, at full strength, the Suns can match it with any side in the competition, but he’s yet to have all his best players on the park at the one time.
“Albanvale are clearly the top team and we don’t know what a fully loaded Parkside is yet,” he said.
“We think we can compete with them when we have everyone fit, but we’ve never had that. I’ve got six to come back and they’re all important players.”
With captain Jesse Stiles, prime mover Nathan Wallace and a number of other ‘bigs’ spending time on the sidelines with injury, the Suns have turned to other players to step up and fill the void.
Brendan Tyquin has provided much-needed muscle to the forward line to be the club’s leading goal kicker with 26.
Joe Pace has been a veteran presence in defence, taking on some of the division’s big key forwards.
Hayden Iannacone is one of the rising stars and a standout in the midfield, while Aaron Borg, Josh Stephens, David Gamble, Ash Gallina, Angus Holmes and Steve Krpan have regularly featured among the best players.
“Our senior players have been really good and they’ve had to be,” Stoodley said.
“Guys who have played every week have had to pick up the shortfall from the injuries.
“I’ve had no fewer than three changes and most of them are forced by injury, so the guys that have played every week have been very good.”
The Suns remain a game and a half clear in second spot but will need to snap out of their recent funk to stay there.
Stoodley will want to see an upswing in fortunes when his side hosts local rivals Tarneit at Goddard Street Reserve on Saturday.
“We’ve been a bit up and down the last few weeks and we need to get things going again,” he said.
“We’ve had a really good year, but we have a long way to go and we’ve set no ceiling.”
