By Jonty Ralphsmith
Cranbourne coach Steve O’Brien is confident his club has the depth to cover the losses of premiership players Jake Carosella and Luca Bellinvia.
Both have landed at Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League (MPNFL) club Rosebud under coach Danny Ades, who got a good look at them last year as Dingley’s player-coach.
The pair were key contributors throughout the Eagles’ charge, along with big forward Marc Holt who has retired, but the club was missing several key names late last year whose return will keep the club well-stocked.
Leadership group member Dylan Cavalot and 2021 best and fairest winner Jarryd Barker are a couple of midfielders who look set to slot straight in.
A knee injury kept Barker out of action in 2022 while Cavalot broke his leg midway through the season.
Tyson Barry and Zak Roscoe are all doing preseasons at Casey, along with Barker, George Grey who played in the Dees’ premiership last year, and Corey Ellison has crossed to Williamstown.
“Some of the boys last year were keen for opportunity in the midfield and those opportunities are now presented with Jake moving on and Luca is finding his way in senior footy; it’s a bit disappointing he’s left but you can’t keep them all so we just move on,” O’Brien said.
“We’ve got some young kids coming through our system, some pretty good young talent, so they (might) fill up the outside roles with their youth and exuberance and run and that relieves some of our outside guys to become inside mids.”
Jake Stephens is putting his hand up to help fill the Holt-sized hole inside 50.
Stephens started 2022 as a ruckman before a PCL injury prematurely ended his season, with Cranbourne optimistic it can develop his forward craft and capitalise on his power.
When O’Brien was reappointed, Cranbourne said there would be a greater emphasis on developing assistant coaches and the coach gave an insight into how that looked in practice.
“Before Christmas, I basically took a back seat and handed it over to the assistant coaches for their development and their growth and that’s something that will continue throughout times of the year,” he said.
“There’ll be times I’ll step in, but with them stepping up, it will free me up to do a bit more of the development-type work and work with the under-19s for a more holistic development approach.
“It’s always been something I have been pushing and promoting and wanting to do and sometimes circumstances don’t allow that.
“But that’s what we want to do, we don’t just want to develop the players, we want to develop the coaches so that’s the path we’re on.
“I’ve been doing it for a long time so it keeps me fresh.”
