By Marcus Uhe
One month out from its round-one clash with Vermont, the make-up of Clint Evans’ Berwick side remains a mystery.
But after a season submarined by catastrophic injuries in 2022, in which they just survived relegation with only four wins, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
A total of 48 players pulled on the navy blue in the senior side, severely impacting their ability to gel and build any sort of continuity, with players such as Tim Gunn, Jesse Cirulis, Harrison Money and Jye Neal all spending considerable time on the sidelines.
It’s roughly the same number of players they’ve had consistently on the track this preseason, presenting a good problem for Evans and his new, strengthened coaching panel.
“We’re trying to put a side together for round one, and this is the good thing about it, it’s just so unknown,” Evans said.
“We’ve got 32 players on the board for round one, whereas last year we were probably lucky to have 22 because of the injuries in our preseason.
“We sort of go into this season with eyes wide-open, because we just don’t know what to expect.”
It’s the return of those players, plus the progression of a younger crop from a promising under-19 campaign – in which they finished two-points shy of a grand final berth – that has offset concerns about a perceived lack of recruiting.
While the loss of best-and-fairest winner Bryce Rutherford will leave a significant hole, Berwick will welcome Will Arthurson to the fold for the duration of the season, after splitting his time at Edwin Flack with VFL side Frankston in 2022.
Jackson Drake and Jordan Roberts have made the switch from The Basin, Kyle O’Sullivan comes over from Nar Nar Goon, and Brad Homfray joins from Beaconsfield, with the latter three all having a player/coach connection to Evans through their junior football days.
And still being new to the Eastern Football League, having only completed one full season after making the jump from the Outer East at the end of 2020, the mystery and uncertainty makes them both difficult to scout, and hard to assess where they stand in relation to the other sides.
“That’s the exciting thing for us as coaches at Berwick, we look like there’s something there, but we just don’t know, so it’s exciting that’s for sure,” Evans said.
“We’re finding our feet still and we want to stay in Premier, that’s our big thing.
“The step-up is just huge from where we’ve come from.
“We can’t get away with thinking what we did, and we’ve got to try and bridge that gap pretty quickly, because I think this year, the bottom two get relegated.
“It’s a massive change, but it’s a good change because we’ve got all these kids and we’re starting from scratch, which is probably not a bad thing.”
In order to mitigate the challenges that come with playing inexperienced sides and relying on youth, Evans and his coaching panel are leaning heavily on the educational aspect, already reviewing game footage and looking to dissuade the influence of lapses in concentration that hurt them so often previously.
Rob Monk will be trusted with managing the vision while juggling responsibilities with the midfield, recently retired Riley Heddles will coach the backs and Andrew Morrow the forwards.
“There was probably a fifteen minute gap last year where really good sides would kick four or five on us really quick, and then would shut the game out, and with such a young group we know that that’s going to happen,” Evans said.
“We’re doing a heap of game sense and showing them games from last year as well, around the setups, what they’re doing and where they’re standing.
“It’s easy for us to say ‘you’re not running right’ but when they see it themselves, they go, ‘shit, now I actually know what they’re talking about.’
“We’re really working on running patterns and what we’re doing when we haven’t got the football, and that’s probably been our biggest thing this year, the understanding of it.
“We’re going to be fit and we’re going to be a running side, and we’re hoping to take the game on a little bit more.”
Facing strong opposition in upcoming practice games, when they’ll host Franskton YCW and Leongatha and head north to tackle Greensborough, Evans expects to have more of an idea of how to plug those gaps in his likely starting 22 as the season draws closer.
“Because it’s such a new group, people ask me’ what do you expect?’ But because it’s such a new group, I just don’t know what to expect,” he said.
“There’s a heap of kids but I won’t know until, probably three weeks time, where we can go, the guys who we think are up to it.
“We’ll know more in three weeks when we play some real quality sides over four quarters.
“I’ve got 32-35 to pick from at the moment and if we can keep that for round one that’ll be fantastic for us.
“What I’ve seen this year in preseason has been really exciting, and I’m really looking forward to the next few weeks.”
