Gods Email

I hope you are all as excited as we are for the season ahead.

With our first couple of trial games behind us and with our first game of the season only a week and a half away I thought it was a perfect time to give you all a brief update on where we as a Club are currently at. I’d also like to take the opportunity to make you aware of my thoughts on the recent announcement that I would be coaching the SANFL representative team to play the WAFL team in late May.

Obviously, it was a huge honour to be asked to consider the position firstly, and I am delighted that the SANFL have seen fit to appoint me to the position. As you would all know, I have a passion for the SANFL competition and so this is a personal highlight for me but one that I know would not have been achieved without our success in 2011. So, to all of our Members and Supporters, I thank you for getting us over the line last year!

I could understand if some of you thought this has the potential to distract me from my job as Senior Coach of the Eagles. So, to those who may have this thought I want to reassure you that a lot of discussion took place between the Management of our Club, the SANFL and I to make sure there was no way this could impact on our quest for the 2012 Premiership and I am very confident the program the SANFL have put in place in consultation with us will make sure there is no impact on the Eagles at all.

The post-Christmas training has been hard and demanding on the playing group which has put them in a good position to be ready for the Round 1 clash vs. Port. We have been working on the basics of the game for most of the time, making sure the simplest skills are not ignored while slowly integrating our structures and making sure everyone understands their roles.

So far in the trials I have liked a lot of what we have done, but have been a bit frustrated with some other things which has given us an opportunity to identify our deficiencies so we can improve. The first game against the Bays gave us a good hit out and that’s about it. The second trial vs. West exposed a mental weakness to prepare the same every week no matter what the game is so unfortunately we couldn’t test a lot of our systems due to a non-competitive effort.

This week we will endeavour to be more competitive so we can get our systems going and find out what works for us and what doesn’t. One aspect of trials which is always exciting is to see the youth play in the League and to have a snap shot of the future, and for that I have been excited, there have been numerous players show with some hard work and persistence our next generation is looking good.

The list this year is going to be a challenge with 16 AFL players involved and the thought of some senior players in their twilight. We need to make sure the future is secure by getting games into those that need them while making sure we still win. This is the area we will need to be very conscious of but I can assure you we have a good plan in place and I look forward to seeing it unfold.

Finally as a club it was a great result last year and one that was thoroughly deserved by all but it is exactly that; last year, so we need to move on quickly and make sure the club as a whole improves and if we can all do that we will be there later in the year giving it another crack.

Michael Godden