Roxburgh Park is showing plenty of character as it fights out the Essendon District Football League division 1 season.
The Magpies’ fate in division 1 has already been sealed with the side to finish bottom and be relegated for next season.
Coach Ross Terranova said the playing group had continued to stick together.
Many have already re-signed for next season, as has Terranova.
“Wwe are still getting 50 blokes to training,” he said. “For a club that has been a little bit down and out and the wins haven’t come, the group has stuck together and that’s a credit to the players and the football club.
“We do keep a really tight group, it has been fantastic.
“It shows the character of the players that we have, and the football club that we are involved in.
“We just want to keep fighting it out.”
In football you need to have some luck and for things to go your way to play finals, let alone claim a premiership.
It’s not something that the Magpies have had as they’ve had a rotten run of injuries.
Terranova said they know they aren’t the worst side to have been relegated in the past 20 years.
“I think that’s the important thing you have to remember that we’ve a lot of young blokes in our side and we’ve made a lot of changes week in week out,” he said.
“The continuity has been an issue to get the group to gel and play a brand of footy
“The style we want to execute has been difficult.
“We only made two changes from last week and we were able to get some players back.
“We’ve lost five games by under 20 points and a lot of things happen within our four walls that no one knows about.
“It’s been difficult and had a bad run with injuries and that’s the fact.”
Terranova highlighted the departure of TeroNne Potter to Coffs Harbour mid season, Daniel Watson fracturing his neck and serious knee injuries to Lucas Repic, Brandon McLarty and Jake Talintyre as key players that have missed games.
With a stronger side towards the back end of the season, the Magpies have started to play more of the football they would like.
In the second last round, they upset Moonee Valley.
Terranova said that was a pretty good day for the club.
“We’ve been working towards that and we’ve been sending the same messaging. It’s just about executing the way that we want to play,” he said.
“I think the last couple of weeks we’ve been able to do that in games this year in games that we’ve been in and have done it well and have not just done it for long enough.
“Yesterday [Saturday] was very good to finish off the way we did, we challenged in the second quarter and moonee valley got ahead of us and kicked seven goals in the third and put the game away which was really positive
“We’re playing with a little bit of lair and freedom, boys have adapted.”
