Tara Murray
It’s short term pain for long term gain for Epping in the Northern Football League division 2.
Riddled with injuries the Pingers have had to turn to youth to try and fill the gaps.
Co-coach Glen Lehner admits it has been hard, but they know there is light at the tunnel.
“We’re getting two teams on the park which is a positive,” he said. “If it happened last year and we had this run of injuries we wouldn’t have been fielding two sides each week.
“We had five players go down injured on the weekend. I think we have 11 to 13 senior listed players not playing through injuries.
“It means we’re playing the kids and giving them opportunities.
“One of the things we love doing is developing the kids and we’re fortunate we can do that. We’re playing kids before they’re ready but we get to see them.
Lehner said that some of the young players were coming in and looking right at home.
Zac Ferguson has played every game and is doing extremely well, while Jack Hegarty came in as 23rd man a couple of weeks ago and kept his spot.
Mitchell Wilson played his first game of senior game of the season on Saturday, while Daniel Rakhlin is another one getting opportunities.
Lehner said they were hoping to start getting back some of the players with long term injuries in the next month or so.
On Saturday, the Pingers suffered a big loss to St Mary’s 24.9 (153)-6.10 (46).
Lehner said the scoreboard didn’t really reflect the performance they put in.
“We were in the game outside of 20 minutes of football,” he said.
“We were really competitive and were 10 points down at half time. Our captain [Leigh Judd] got a bad injury and we were left shell shocked.
“They put their foot down and kicked 10 goals in 20 minutes. We were competitive for two, two and half quarters.”
Dylan Hoysted and Damon Marcon kicked two goals each.
Adrian Cirianni was named their best.
Lehner said the injury to Judd wasn’t as bad as they first thought. He is still expected to miss a few weeks with bone bruising and an ankle injury.
He said with having a younger side they would at times not be able to match it with the more experienced teams.
“We’ll see the direction the club is going in the next two to three years,” he said.
“Hopefully we’ll have under-19s and set a good platform to build on. Short term pain for long term gain.
The Pingers currently sit ninth with one win. This week they face Lower Plenty.
