Most often in life, it’s about taking advantage of the opportunities that get presented. Without doubt, the most pleasing aspect of the early part of the 2019 NEAFL season from a coach’s perspective has been seeing some of our young and new players grab their opportunities.

Leading into the season, we were excited by some of the raw talent, such as the likes of Brodie Carroll, Jess Budarick, Ben Taylor, Dylan McLachlan and Josiah Farrer amongst others. We did not doubt that they would play at some point in 2019, but with injury and unavailability, chance has come about early for all of these players.

While they are all at different stages in age and development both physically and from a game perspective, they all have some key elements in common. Most importantly they get stuck into working on making small improvements every day along with just playing the role they’re asked to, whatever that may be. Equally pleasing, they have all played a strong hand in driving our training standards to a new level and haven’t been afraid to speak up and have a voice amongst the group.

The whole group still has some way to go, but the signs have been very good over the past month, and we are making up some ground. This weekend presents another opportunity for all of our players to test themselves against an AFL club with the Gold Coast Suns in town.

What I’m sure of is all of our players have not rested on their positive result from last weekend but instead, have challenged each other to be better again this weekend, and not through words but their actions at training. Pleasingly the young and new players have again been right in the front of the pack leading the charge. Bring on Saturday night!

Go Thunder!