QBE Football Update with Subiaco Football Manager Daniel Vidovich

With less than two months to the bounce of the first ball in the 2018 WAFL season, Subiaco Football Manager Daniel Vidovich sits down to give an update on who have been some of the strong performers on the pre-season training track.

Overall, how would you say the pre-season has been tracking for Subiaco?

The boys have been training well the whole way through since coming back in November. As it tends to be, it’s been another tough preseason but the players continue to show how committed they are to our program and there has been some good testing results shown so far. We are certainly all hopeful that the hard work at this early stage will have benefits early in the season.

A number of new and returning recruits at the club in 2018, have any of the new recruits been impressing on the track?

We certainly have a great group of recruits, both those returning to the club and those that are new to our system. For players that came off injury interrupted AFL careers, Zac Clarke and Ben Newton have been outstanding both in their on track performance and their ability to integrate strongly to the squad. Guys that have returned like Rhys Waters and Sean Bradley know what our expectations are and they have certainly been good performers while younger guys like Jack Fletcher, Matthew Elhers and David Elhers have also blended in well and have strongly embraced the gruelling pre-season workload.

How have you seen the performance of last year’s colts transitioning up to senior footy and have there been any standouts from the colts group?

Beau, Farms and the whole Colts group did an amazing job last year with all the colts players and that has been noticeable coming into pre-season. The boys that have stepped up into the senior group had a great starting base thanks to the work of our colts and development transition programs and a number of the young boys have shown really good progress in all areas. We expect a number will have a big impact at Development League level early in the year and don’t be surprised to be some in the mix for senior selection throughout 2018.

Has the club settled on its coaching panel for 2018, any new faces to the mix?

We have a pretty stable group and it’s always a good thing when you can keep the majority of coaches within your system. This year we have added a new face to the program in Matthew Cavedon who will be taking over from Andrew Lockyer who did an outstanding job with our Development League Side in 2017. Matthew is new to the team and bring an enormous amount of energy and has hit the ground running with our Development League group. Ryan Redfern, who was involved more at a part time level last year as a development coach for the 1^st to 3^rd year players, comes back into a Senior Assistant coach role with our league team, working with the forwards replacing Paul Vines. Always good to have experience within the coaching ranks and Ryan has that with previously being an Assistant coach in 2015 & 2016 and as the Development League Head coach in 2014.

Is there any player that fans should be keeping an eye on in pre-season, younger players who look like they are ready for a big 2018 season?

After winning a Development League Grand Final its always exciting to see the young players that were involved in that, take the next step to play league football the following season. I’m really looking forward to guys like Ryan Borchet playing some league football in 2018. He has shown great commitment to the program over the past couple seasons after moving up to Perth as a colts players in 2015 and you can see the definite improvement in him over the past two season in the senior program and he wasn’t too far off on making his debut last year. I believe Michael Braut will also will string a few more league games to his belt this season. Michael did debut last year, but his pre-season hasn’t gone to plan so far with an injury holding him back, but he is about to hit the training track again and I believe he can become a consistent league player for the club. Ben Reid & Jacob Miller will be also ones to keep an eye on as well after their first year within the senior program last year. Ben transformed his body last year as he understood the commitment required to go to the next level, he played in 22 of a possible 24 Development League games in 2017, his hardness at the contest is something to admire and I believe he is a future leader at the club. Jacob is a player that continues to develop and understand the tasks given to him. His pre-season has been really good reaching fitness targets set by fitness & coaching staff.

Any plans for the group in regards to a training camp or is training going to be at Leederville Oval through to the start of the year?

The younger players in the squad completed a bit of a training camp earlier in the month. This was a gruelling session out in the hills with the focus of the session really on leadership, communication and accountability. We ran a similar session last year and the development in 12 months was extreme. We were really impressed by the improved leadership amongst the younger players in the group and certainly believe we are in a good position heading into 2018 and beyond.