The need and want for his premiership-winning group to stick together has seen Lilydale coach Colin Lockhart recommit to the club for two seasons.
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Fueled by a desire to achieve success within the NTFA's division one competition, Lockhart has now seen his five-year stint at Lilydale as a failure, despite claiming two premierships in five years.
"Thane [Bardenhagen] and I when we came back basically five years ago, we were pretty hard on ourselves and we said we wanted to win three flags in five years," Lockhart said.
"Me particularly, I've basically treated it as a failure because we're only going to be winning two in five so I've told the club and the players that I've recommitted for two years and I'm not going to be happy unless we get two more flags.
"I'm hungry, I know the leadership group are hungry and I know after talking to all players that have recommitted for next year because I gave them a question a while ago, if the season was cancelled, would you honour your commitment and contracts going into next season, and every player said 100 per cent yes.
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"We are hungry, we will actually be 100 per cent hungrier and stronger as next season goes around."
Lockhart said his players were disappointed by the season's premature end but understanding of the decision with the call potentially extending some players' careers.
"As a group, we are seeing that the world is in bad shape compared to what little old Lilydale are. As a group, we are healthy, we were fit and just probably taking it as it is - having a really good break.
"Some of our older players, which we haven't got that many of, are loving the break and people are talking about playing for the next couple of years because of the break.
"We are taking it as a great chance to freshen up."
Following last year's dominant golden season, where the Demons went through the whole season undefeated before claiming the division one premiership, you could understand some players wanting to continue the momentum.
But despite potential opportunities for State League play for Lockhart's big guns, the players stayed true to the Demons and their chase of a 2021 flag.
"I've had some players ring up and they thought about it but they've told me they love this group, love playing for Lilydale Football Club and don't want to jeopardize an injury or anything.
"They didn't want the risk of missing out on what we've actually built in the last four years.
"We've got a real core group of even blokes that were unlucky to not get a senior final last year, they've been there for four or five years.
"A couple of them played in the first premiership, a couple of them in the losing premiership, they are all there and hungry for the same thing, they don't want to miss out on the opportunity that we've got."
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