Woori Yallock JFC – 2022 Season Preview

Woori Yallock Junior Football Club are looking forward to a big year of community sport, where strong retention and recruitment sees the Tigers in a great position to develop its young footballers.

This allows almost all the available age groups at OEFN juniors be filled with teams from Tigerland and take the field this year.

One of the great strengths of the club is the knowledge of its coaches, which includes senior captain Kody Busoli who will lead the under 17’s this year.

“The club reached out to Kody to try and get some senior players involved with the older brigade of our juniors so we can bridge the gap from juniors to seniors,” said club president Luke Bower.

“We find that the transition between the two clubs is a big jump, so we figured that getting some of the senior players involved would help make them more comfortable.

“This has worked really well so far and hopefully this will assist the senior club long term as well.”

Under the guidance of Dallas Spencer, the under 15’s boys have performed really well in their training program to date, while the under 13’s also look good.

The under 10’s and 11’s have also produced great numbers in the lower age groups, with strong numbers in the Auskick program providing great support for kids to transition well into junior football.

The strong numbers seen across all age groups at the Tigers is well reflected with a pre-season training program encompassing a positive attitude and teamwork that sees the club looking towards an exciting, uninterrupted year in developing young adults into good footballers.

“We are in a situation now where although the risk of COVID-19 remains, it’s in a manageable position and it won’t have much of an interruption on the season,” Bower explained.

“I think the kids are happy to get into some normality to play on game day and we are really excited about getting the kids back on the oval and the reassurance that we will get a full season in and play finals.”

Bower has no on-field expectations for his club this season, as the junior Tigers do not place an emphasis with on-field results to determine success.

Instead, it’s the ability to build participation numbers and ensure the kids are engaging with junior football that has a much greater level of importance.

“We have some strong teams, but on-field competitiveness is not what we are about,” he said.

“We would prefer to have high participation and retention numbers than win premierships.

“If we are not successful but we have had our juniors return, train and play well, have fun and come back for more next year, then that’s how we determine our success because it’s about getting the kids back out there and involved in community sport.”