Tara Murray
There’s a real buzz of excitement at West Footscray as the pre-season quickly approaches.
After not winning a game in the Western Region Football League division 2 last season, the Roosters under new coach Troy Beamond are excited about the future.
For Beamond, who previously coached against the Roosters when he was coach at Wyndhamvale, he felt that he could help West Footscray get back on track on field.
The club starts pre-season next week.
“It’s quite exciting and I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “I guess after COVID, I wanted to get back into the community.
“Once a coach, always a coach and I’ve got the coaching bug again. I felt that I could potentially coach them.”
Beamond said one of his former assistant coaches had been at West Footscray and spoke nothing but positively about the passion and the culture of the club.
He said while the senior results weren’t great this year, there were positive sides throughout the club.
“They’ve been around for 90 years, but they’ve struggled the last few years,” he said.
“They’re all super positive. They knew early this year where they were at, particularly after a few injuries.
“They’ve had a big focus on juniors and have great numbers. The under-18s were successful… apart from the results of the senior 22 each week, you had plenty of positive signs.”
The side will play in division 3 next year after being relegated. Beamond said the league had told clubs that there would be no changes to structures even if Deer Park and St Albans leave the competition.
Beamond said their squad was starting to come together nicely,
“We’ve retained 85 to 90 per cent of our players from last season,” he said.
“All the 18s from the preliminary final side that have to go up to senior football have signed with us as well.
“We’ve picked up seven or eight ready-made senior footballers as well.”
Beamond said while success was desirable, that wasn’t the main focus of the group heading into next year.
He said they want to ensure the club is a good position long term.
“It’s not about going back to division 3 and expecting to win a premiership straight away,” he said.
“We hope to be successful and we want to get that winning mentality back.
“We’ve got young kids coming up and all but one of our recruits is 22 or under as well.
“We’ll try and have a successful set up for two to three years and hopefully in eight to 10 years.”
