Jacana Football Club has wasted no time preparing for next year’s Essendon District Football League division 2 season.
Just weeks after completing their 2016 campaign, the Jaguars announced Craigieburn assistant Robert Fletcher as their senior coach for next year, with Troy Fiddler as his assistant and Justin Mall as a playing assistant.
Not content with just signing the coaching panel, the Jaguars have already announced a number of player signings.
The biggest one, former AFL player Cameron Cloke, has spent the past two years playing with Craigieburn, where he has won the division 1 goalkicking both years and finished in the top three of that division’s best and fairest.
Fletcher said the friendship he had formed with Cloke was instrumental in getting the big forward across.
“He’s a mate of ours off field and we go away fishing together with Troy,” Fletcher said.
“He wanted to come play with his mates. As soon as Cam signed it set things off.”
Fletcher said they had signed several players to add to the squad to help them push up the ladder. The Jaguars finished seventh, with six wins for the season. In 2015, they made the grand final.
The club has already announced the signings of Mall, George Sanderson, Colin Ribbons, Shane Barry, Luke Roach, Justin Colliss, Dylan Walker, Jamie Hardstaff, Shannon Bennett, Aaron Brown and Luke Scarpini.
They have also re-signed Billy Morrison, Bryce Mall, Michael Evans, Dylan Wolfgramm, Shane Cleary, Craig Poynter and Mathew Siciliano.
“The seconds played in a grand final and the seniors lost seven games by under 10 points,” Fletcher said. “Now, with another eight or nine blokes it will help. We were really looking for midfielders.”
“We’ve got a forward who can kick 100 goals, but that’s no good if there’s no one kicking it to him.”
The coaching role is Fletcher’s first senior head coaching role, having coached at junior and under-19 level before joining Craigieburn.
He replaces Aaron Collins, who coached the side the past two years.
Fletcher said the work the Jaguars were doing off field was what really attracted him to the job.
“They’re ticking all the boxes,” he said.
“They’ve had a enough of being in the bottom division. We [Fletcher and Fiddler] were fortunate they accepted us together.”
Off-field, the Jaguars are trying to get an under-19s team back up and running to give the younger players a team to aim for.
Fletcher says they are keen to get to work and start preparing for next year.
Training starts on November 14.
