By Justin Schwarze
Cranbourne Football Club has massive aspirations for 2025 as the Eagles look to soar to higher levels in the top flight of the Southern Football Netball League.
With a new challenge and a new coach at the helm, the club from Livingston Reserve has tweaked and reloaded its list ahead of building on its semi-final appearance last season.
Over the summer the club looked interstate with some of their signings, putting pen to paper with new recruits Damon Krake, Lewis Robbins, Luke Morrell, Kyle Lanham and Sam Cooke.
Krake and Robbins have made the trek down south, moving from the Northern Territory.
“I was talking to them separately without realising they were best mates and actually moving to Melbourne together, we got pretty lucky with that one,” senior coach Angelo Soldatos said.
“Lewis is a big 206 centimetre ruck/key forward.
“Damon is the other end of it, he’s a small guy but he covers the ground really well, kicks the footy well.”
In the recruiting process, key areas marked were finding players with size and pace to add to the returning core.
After watching Cranbourne in the finals before receiving the coaching role, Soldatos immediately had ideas.
“I was lucky (or unlucky) that the team I was involved with last year didn’t play finals, so I got to go to all the SFL finals, Cranbourne and the other teams,” he said.
“It was pretty obvious that we were small, so we needed to bring in some size so that was probably priority number one.
“Then, just a little bit of leg speed as well across the ground, so those were the two areas we focused on.”
Morrell, coming over from Berwick Springs, ticked all the boxes for Cranbourne.
A young player, 2024 was Morrell’s first season playing senior footy after playing under-19s at Berwick.
“He is the leg speed component of it,” Soldatos said of Morrell.
“He’s fitted in really well, even personality wise.
“He’s only young but he’s been good, the boys really like him and his training’s been solid; I think he’ll definitely add to us, that’s for sure.”
On the interstate theme, Lanham and Cooke head across Bass Strait from playing in Tasmania in 2024.
Cooke joins from George Town and Lanham becomes an Eagle from Scottsdale, both in the Northern Tasmania Football Association.
“Kyle is a pretty dynamic forward,” Soldatos stated.
“He’s trained well, he’s fit in well and he’s a good guy and we really enjoy having him.
“Kyle and Sam actually played against each other for the last couple of years, so we were able to get some intel pretty quickly from Kyle.
“He’s a good player, Kyle speaks very highly of him.”
Along with the fresh faces, the club brought back a lot of its core from 2024, including skipper and league best-and-fairest winner Zak Roscoe.
With that, they want to create a deep club, with a competitive environment.
“I’ve said a few times I’m pretty lucky, even though I’m a first time coach, but I’m walking into a club that’s been really successful,” Soldatos reflected.
“We’ve got players who are really invested in the club too, everyone’s aware now about points and cap and all of that sort of stuff, we’ve just got so many one pointers and local guys who have been there for a long time who just really care about the footy club and want the footy club to do well.
“From a club point of view, we wanted to bring in some depth which we’ve managed to do.
“We felt like last year as a footy club our twos didn’t have the greatest year and the 19s struggled at stages as well.
“It’s not a coincidence Dingley and Cheltenham played off in a grand final in the seniors and the reserves, depth is super important.
“We tried to do that, we tried to have a strong club, not just a strong senior side.”
With a new coach, the club has a fresh approach and a fresh slate for a brand new campaign.
Cranbourne opens the 2025 season with a highly-anticipated blockbuster away clash with arch-rivals Narre Warren on Saturday 5 April.
