MANY former State League players have returned to their grassroots homes with club faithfuls hoping they can guide them to long overdue success.
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Rocherlea climbed back to the top last year’s following two years of South Launceston dominance.
The Bulldogs have added height to their list with ex-Deloraine coach Rory Mansell and Uni-Mowbray’s Hayden Fox among others.
Can the Suburban Tigers go back-to-back or will Leigh Harding’s men regain supremacy?
Bracknell have brought in former Port Adelaide-listed forward Glenn Dawson as they look to go from runners-up to premiers, while Longford fans hope a new coach and captain can finally break the Tigers into the top five.
The bigger bodied Beau and Cody Thorp, Tom Reinmuth and Josh Frankcombe will complement Longford’s youth.
Arguably Tasmania’s best ruckman Daniel Roozendaal will line up for Scottsdale after sustained success at North Launceston – making Geoff Mohr’s Magpies look every bit a contender.
The problem being, so do several other clubs.
Former St Pats coach Jacob Lowe has continued Hillwood’s rebuild with a plethora of new faces, while George Town’s youth will benefit from an influx of TSL talent such as Ethan Goldfinch and Braidy Squires.
Deloraine’s new coach Brett Smith has acquired the services of division 2 leading goalkicker Shannon Mulvey and Bridgenorth will keep all teams honest as always with Clarence ruckman Rohan Bones bolstering the Parrots’ flock.
Whatever comes to fruition, it is sure to be a tough season where there will be little margin for error for teams with September ambitions.
The top five will be hard to crack with every slip up to prove costly.
Time will only tell.
LADDER PREDICTION
- Rocherlea
- South Launceston
- Bracknell
- Longford
- Scottsdale
- Bridgenorth
- Hillwood
- George Town
- Deloraine
BRACKNELL
Coach: Gary Shipton.
Captain: Gary Shipton and Richard Howe.
Ins: David Abraham, Glenn Dawson (Uni-Mowbray), Jesse Brown, Mitch Clark, Cameron Johns, Jack Dyer, Will Fisher (TSL), Kyle Gray (Darwin), Eric Izbicki (NFL), Adam Scott (MV Suns), Sean Fisher (ODFA).
Outs: Josh Adams (retired), Bayley Neil (TSL), Matt Lang (interstate).
Last season: Runners-up.
Captain says: Having made the grand final last year we’re looking to bigger and better things this time around.
We’ve been working on all areas of our game to try and improve.
The competition is getting better every year with Longford, Rocherlea, South and Scottsdale going to be tough competition.
Glenn Dawson has joined us from Uni-Mowbray and he will slot in to replace Josh Adams at full forward along with Adam Scott returning.
BRIDGENORTH
Coach: Patrick Mackrell.
Captain: TBC.
Ins: Rohan Bones, Jordan Partridge (TSL), Tyson Gray (SFL), Corey Somerville (Victoria), Brady Demeijer (returning), John Broomby (Tamar Cats).
Outs: Jake Kilby (St Pats), Josh Allen, Corey Watt, Daniel Burgess, Nathan Croft (Tamar Cats), Will Campbell (South Launceston).
Last season: Fifth.
Coach says: We’ll be aiming for a top-three finish, improving on last year with the young and talented group we’ve got.
We’ve been working on fast ball movement, which is something we will be aiming for and developing as the season goes on as we learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
We’ve got some quality talls, who are probably our strength and some kids that can play.
Longford will be the big improvers under Tom (Reinmuth) so it will be pretty tight up the top half of the ladder.
DELORAINE
Coach: Brett Smith.
Captain: Josh Cameron.
Ins: Shannon Mulvey (Uni-Mowbray), Jade Smith (Latrobe), Oliver Smith (TSL).
Outs: Sherrin Egger, Ben Killalea, Dylan Schnoor, Rulla Kelly-Mansell (TSL), Rory Mansell (South Launceston), Josh Murray, Jarrod Murray (Tamar Cats).
Last season: Eighth.
Coach says: It is not going to be easy for me not knowing any of the other teams.
We’ve got a reasonably young group with a fair bit of potential and they are all willing to learn.
Our strengths will be the rucking division as I’ve got my son (Jade Smith), who is six-foot nine playing... and Shannon Mulvey as our full forward, which should help us to kick a winning score.
Josh Cameron will again lead from the front.
We’ve changed things up, we’ve got a new game plan and as long as we can stick by that we will be in good stead.
We’ve got the bye first up so our aim is to win our first game against George Town.
GEORGE TOWN
Coach: Allan O'Sign.
Captain: Adam Zanevra.
Ins: Ethan Goldfinch, Shayne Goldfinch, Braidy Squires (TSL), Tyson Jones (returning), Lachlan Mason, Luther Cronley (Winnaleah).
Outs: Shaun Muller (Old Scotch).
Last season: Seventh.
Coach says: I think we earnt a little bit of respect back from the competition last year by just the way we went about it so the goal is to go again and keep earning that respect back.
To put a win-loss ratio on it is irrelevant, it’s more about continual improvement from the playing group and hopefully that will result in putting a few more wins on the board.
Our running-type play will be our key as we’ve got a lot of youth with some leg speed and we’ll be looking to utilise that.
Our midfield brigade can match it with anyone in the competition so I will be putting it on us to back ourselves to get the job done around the ground.
HILLWOOD
Coach: Jacob Lowe.
Captain: Jake King.
Ins: Ryan Choveaux, Marcus Haley, Issac Thompson, Rhys Heald (TSL), Nick Bauld (returning), Dylan Mackrill, Jason Sherriff (Prospect), Joel Champ (Lilydale), Aidan Collins (South Launceston), Alex Cusick (ODFA), Jarrod Frankcombe, Damon Howe, Brendan Klok (Uni-Mowbray).
Outs: James Lee (Old Scotch).
Last season: Ninth.
Coach says: With a fairly new group and coming off a couple of lean years in terms of wins and losses, but also the standards that have been set in the past few years, it’s more a building year and consolidating.
We want to see some improvement from last year and we don’t have a barrier on that.
It would be good to make finals but it’s a pretty strong competition – you’re going to have to win nine or 10 games to play finals.
We’ll be aiming to win half our games and anything after that is a bonus.
Our strengths will be our fitness and ball skills on the spread and our obvious weakness is team unison at the moment with 16 new faces. Jake King will captain again with Jesse Higgs and Tom Wilson his vice-captains.
LONGFORD
Coach: Tom Reinmuth.
Captain: Beau Thorp.
Ins: Beau Thorp, Cody Thorp, Caleb Bushing, Brad Dodds (TSL), Josh Frankcombe (Old Scotch), Tom Reinmuth (Lilydale).
Outs: Jake Sushames (EC Swans), Nathan Jackson, Tyran Mansell (TSL).
Last season: Sixth.
Coach says: There is no doubt we want to play finals footy.
Our young blokes have had a taste of senior football, which is a good thing and what I’ve tried to do is surround them with some experienced guys that have played TSL footy to hopefully help them take their game to the next level.
Our strength is definitely our depth… and we’re looking to take the next step.
Beau Thorp has got the captaincy role and the vice-captains are Jackson Blair and Lachlan Dakin – two young guys and an older head.
Also in our leadership group are Ben Chugg and Tom Cox.
ROCHERLEA
Coach: Lyndon Stubbs.
Captain: Brenton Gale.
Ins: Justin Wright, Taylor Stone, Clint Johnson (returning).
Outs: Jacob Murphy (St Pats), Shaun Etchell, Adam Etchell (Perth), Jack Venn (Lilydale), James Storay (Evandale), Jack Rushton (EC Swans).
Last season: Premiers.
Coach says: We know that everyone will be coming after us so the challenge for our playing group is to continue what we started last year.
We’ve tweaked a few things in our game plan to be a little bit different and better, and I hope our 2017 best will beat anyone that we face.
We haven’t had to add too much but we’re lucky enough to have a few guys returning.
We’ve lost last year’s best and fairest winner (Jack Rushton)… we’re going to miss him around the packs and stuff.
There are a few kids in the under-18 set up that will be pushing to play senior footy.
As a club we are probably in a better position than we were last year.
SCOTTSDALE
Coach: Geoff Mohr.
Captain: Neil Oliver.
Ins: Daniel Roozendaal (TSL), Jed Saville (AFL Queensland), Nathaniel Barnett, Matthew Taylor, James Cox, Rohan Lester (NEFU), Corey Nickels (Victoria).
Outs: Nil.
Last season: Fourth.
Coach says: With a few good acquisitions I think we can take that next step after winning one final last year.
We have to make sure we build on that and go one step further.
We’ve strengthened up our forward line and having Rooza (Daniel Roozendaal) in the midfield is going to make a fair bit of difference.
However, Rooza is only one of 22 players we take onto the field each week… and we need our midfielders to take advantage of his presence.
Our backline was our main strength last year and we haven’t changed that too much but we will be a lot more evenly poised this year.
STH LAUNCESTON
Coach: Leigh Harding.
Captain: Luke Mccarty.
Ins: James Carlson, Dylan Johnson, Jordan Bennett (TSL), Hayden Fox (Uni-Mowbray), Rory Mansell (Deloraine-Lilydale), Luke Tepper (Prospect), Jake Laskey, Ben Webb (returning), Will Campbell (Bridgenorth).
Outs: Jacob Perkins (St Pats), Nick Child (EC Swans), Ben Haywood, Ben Laskey, Robert Lade (Bridport), Shane Wager, Jarrod Price (retired).
Last season: Third.
Coach says: We’ve had 32 solid sessions since early November to put ourselves in pretty good stead for the year. We’re looking at a top-3 finish and we’ll settle for nothing less than that and I’m extremely confident that goal is reachable.
The last few years we haven’t had the luxury of being overly tall but we’ve picked up some guys who have got a bit of size about them to give us some flexibility in how we play.
We’ve picked up a dozen guys who are more than capable of playing senior footy and Anthony Taylor has come on as my bench assistant.
OPENING ROUND
SATURDAY, APRIL 1
- Rocherlea v George Town
- South Launceston v Hillwood
- Bracknell v Longford
- Bridgenorth v Scottsdale