An Update From The Coach

By now we would have all had the opportunity to have a look with our own eyes on how the Perth Football Club is shaping up in season 2013. The time for talking is well and truly over and the time for action has arrived.

I hope you have all enjoyed the start to the season as we have witnessed some exciting football over the past four weeks. I am sure there is still a fair amount of our supporters that will have their doubts about whether we can continue on and make something of the season and that's understandable considering the clubs history.

My view as the senior coach is that we try and break that old Perth mould and join our playing group with a positive and encouraging attitude and surround them with a positive environment on and off the field.

We as a football club just might surprise ourselves with an enjoyable experience when we come each week to support our great club. What's important is that we have internal belief and confidence in what we are doing and everything outside of that is out of the playing group’s control. I can only hope that a strong start to the season has given you all some belief that we as a football club are on the right track.

Our job as a football club is to regain back the respect of all those proud and passionate supporters that have followed the club with much disappointment for many years. I can assure you all that everyone here continually challenges themselves to get better. This is the great thing about working at the Perth Football Club and with the people we have currently at the club.

We all firmly believe that we can become a better team as the season progresses by continually challenging each other and working hard to live and play by our club values. I believe our new leadership group headed up by our captain Paul Bevan will ensure that we keep striving for constant improvement in every aspect of our game.

Nobody here is satisfied with or is resting on our achievement so far, we all know we lost a game on the weekend that we shouldn't have and we will use this week’s bye as a opportunity to try and improve and working on maximising our potential.

AN UPDATE ON THE INJURY LIST

We would all be presently surprised to see Haydn Busher back on deck making his way back through our Development squad. This is exciting to think he could be back in our league team soon if he can keep progressing.

Chance Bateman is recovering quickly and could be back as soon as the Anzac Day clash with East Perth . Daniel O'Sullivan was a late withdrawal last week but we are very confident that he will be fit to play next week.

Sadly the East Fremantle game took its toll on first gamer Brant Collage, he has a broken jaw and had surgery on Tuesday morning and will miss 4-6 weeks. David Johnston has no luck so far at the PFC after a strong preseason game David was struck down with a infection in his arm and required emergency surgery, he had just started to recover and had a roll of the ankle on the weekend that will set him back a few more weeks. Mitchell Leyendekkers missed last week due to some soreness but will be fully recovered for our next game.

Currently we are in good shape injury wise and its a credit to our medical and conditioning staff at the club, let’s hope we can continue to be strong in this area because we all know injures play a big part in a long season.

One of our exciting challenges is to bring our young players through our system and to integrate them into senior football, while at the same time challenging our older players to reach millstones and continue to improve. As a coaching group it's great to see our Development team playing great football and putting pressure on the senior players in the league team. Every player knows they are on notice and there is a replacement pushing for their spot in the team.

So far we have seen three young men make their league debut Matthew Boyle, Michael Sinclair and Brant Collage. It's great to see at all three of these players have come through our colts program and are quickly developing into senior players.

On a development note you would all be pleased to hear that our reserves team last weekend that performed so well against East Fremantle was made up of 19 of 23 players all coming from our colts program's.

SO WHERE TO FROM HERE?

It's important that as a club we don't get ahead of ourselves, we stay focused on our goals and are constantly improving in every area of our football club and continue to develop a strong culture that will form the platform for long team success at the Perth Football Club.

There will be many challenges ahead starting on Anzac Day playing the Royals, but as a club we will judge ourselves on how we deal with difficult times that will determine how the season evolves for us.

Game day is the opportunity for our teams to perform, show improvement and be rewarded for their hard work, we will take the ups and downs and keep striving to be as competitive as we can be and give you all a great reason to come and continue your support. There are no limitations on where this group can take our club this season.

To all that read this letter I encourage you all to get down to Brownes Stadium on Anzac Day and show your support to a young group of players that are working extremely hard to continue to develop and win games of football.


See you at the game,

Damo.