After a busy off-season, Thomastown is using practice matches to settle its line-up ahead of Northern Football League’s division 2 season.
The Bears, last year’s division 3 premiers, have been one of the busiest clubs in the off-season, with more than 20 new players joining as the club looks to be competitive in the higher division.
Recruits include Marcus Casagrande, Anthony Centorrino, Matthew Ferraro, Adam Follacchio, David Janevski, Timmy Totevski, Josh Totino, Joseph Vaccaro, David Gadjet, Adrian Natoli, Adam Follacchio, Josh Beare, and David and Frankie Multari.
Bears’ coach, Dean Sinclair, says the new players have settled in.
“We’ve certainly recruited well and most of the players have been down here since last year,” Sinclair said.
“There’s been a couple of practice matches. We had a couple of goals’ win over St Marys and we won against Scoresby and Epping. This has been about getting games into the new blokes, so they’re playing football with the team.”
Sinclair said all the new players would have to earn their stripes and were not guaranteed selection in the first team.
“There’s going to be no favoritism between the new and the old guys,” he said.
“They [the new ones] have worked hard and dragged the other guys up to another level. Many have come from division 1 and have brought a professionalism that has rubbed off on our guys.”
He said reigning division 3 best and fairest and grand final best-on-field winner Matthew Cupo was set for another big season.
“Matthew has had a solid pre-season as we expected him to.”
Despite the off-season recruiting drive, Sinclair isn’t setting the bar too high.
“We are looking at consolidating our spot in division 2 in the next couple of years. Finals would be nice though.
“If we win a few matches early we might reassess [the pre-season expectation], but at this point it’s about being competitive.
“We were down in division three for a couple of years, so most have tasted division 2 football. We’re looking forward to testing ourselves.”
The Bears kick off on Saturday against Panton Hill at Main Street Reserve.
