By Nick Creely
Pakenham coach Ash Green fully understands where the club sits and how his side is perceived by those outside the four walls, but is confident the Lions can ruffle a few feathers this season.
A focus on playing a brand of football to be proud of has been high on the agenda at Toomuc Reserve, and Green hopes his Lions will bring that to the table in their season opener against Tooradin-Dalmore on 7 April.
“We’ll play hard footy and our pressure will be high, we also like to think we’ll gain more consistency; we’ll take risks, chances and hopefully be more disciplined,” he said.
“We hope that when you play Pakenham, you get a tough contest.
“And as long as guys enjoy each other’s company that really helps as well.”
Green believes the list is shaping up nicely, with the addition of the likes of Joe-Baker Thomas, Jay Jay Peni and James Harrison helping the club recover from the loss of some key personnel, but is careful on placing too much expectation on his group.
“(Joe) has been really good; he’s been in the AFL system for four years, and we got his future brother in law Jay Jay Peni, who was on The Recruit, and we have James Harrison from Berwick too; we wanted to recruit younger guys, and locals if we could, so they’re probably the three we are looking too; what we now have is better depth,” he said.
“But we’re still getting to know quite a few of the new guys; number wise, we’re getting more than 40 at training, and we’ve had a solid pre-season like all the other clubs too; we know where we need to be, and we’re not quite there yet, but we’ll continue to work hard at training.
“We’re under no illusions that we have a lot of work to do, but we’ve had a really good pre-season; we’ve started recruiting after our last game, because it’s a really good standard of football we don’t want the Beaconsfield’s and the Berwick’s to drop to our level, we want to improve to match it with those sides.
“We’ve lost some quality players, but we like to think we’re in a position to replace those guys going forward.”
The Lions are a stunningly successful club, having 30 senior premiership etched into its history, something not lost on the ambitious Green, who hopes his club can bounce back from a tough period.
“We want success, we want premierships, but all the other sides are saying the same thing; we want to improve, and we can only control ourselves; Pakenham’s a successful club, and we want to be successful and work hard to get there,” he said.
“I was fortunate enough to be involved in the premiership back in 2000, and the tradition of the Pakenham Football Club is exciting, and it also builds pressure as a coach, because people want to see success.
“If I’m not doing my job, or I’m struggling, I expect to get a bit of an earful and that’s fine; we have to make our own history going forward, it’s been a while since we won a premiership, so as much as we love the premierships in the past, we want them tomorrow, and into the future.”
