By Mikayla van Loon
The senior side at Montrose Football Club rounded out the first half of the season with an impressive win over top four competitor, Croydon, making it the team’s fourth win for the year.
Rebuilding the coaching and playing roster, senior coach Gary Ayres said the focus has been on the long term and sustained success but ideally he would have liked to have seen more wins than losses at this point of the season.
“The competition is so even that I thought we might have been at a pinch another close game there, whether it was at Beaconsfield or even the Lilydale game where we lost unfortunately on the kick after the siren,” he said.
“But having said that, looking at quarters, which I always do, we’ve now played nine games, having been able to overcome Croydon on Saturday, so we’ve probably only played what I would say are two unacceptable quarters and that happened to be against Bayswater.”
Ayres said up until round nine, the team had played 37 players, ten of whom were debutantes in the senior side, the most recent being two ruckmen, 19-year-old Ben Johnson and 16-year-old Iliro Smit.
“It’s exciting when two young boys are given that chance and they certainly had a fairly significant contribution level, which we’re all very pleased about,” Ayres said.
Nevertheless, Ayres said he thinks the team is one game behind where he would like to be sitting and while injuries and Covid have contributed to the teams variation in players week to week, as coach he now has an understanding of who will help form the best side.
While those sitting at the top of the ladder, being Mooroolbark and East Ringwood, are in the most comfortable position, the middle section of the ladder is anybody’s game.
Losing by small margins to East Ringwood, Mooroolbark, Beaconsfield and Lilydale, Ayres said they are the most important games to get learnings out of.
“I’ve always thought that the two things that change each week are the opposition and the tactics that you use to try and exploit their strengths and weaknesses to a degree.
“We understand that there is very little between the competition because outside Mooroolbark being undefeated and East Ringwood having only lost one game, obviously to Mooroolbark, between third and ninth, you can go one game either way and a bit of percentage. So that’s how tight the competition really is.”
Playing in a standalone match for the Queen’s Birthday weekend against Mooroolbark, Ayres said having the home advantage and hopefully a good crowd will be a boost to Montrose coming off a previous win.
“We’ve come off what I believe is our best team win against Croydon that certainly are a top four side. So that should give us confidence as well and anything we do at Montrose now is about accepting the challenge.”
Moving forward into the back half of the season, Ayres said one of his main takeaways has been when the team gets the defensive right they have been able to convert that to scoring.
“When we actually get the defensive side of our game right, then that generally means the offense will take care of itself.”
Seeing some more experienced players come into the ranks, as well as those who are less experienced make their debuts, Aryes said it’s a good moment for the football club, adding to its 100 year history.
“There’s some exciting times going forward but we’ll only make those exciting by the fact of the matter that we just keep striving to be better.”
