Saints back former Cat Cowan for season success

ST MARY’S is confident boom recruit Josh Cowan’s body will stand up to the rigours of the GFL as the club resumes training today determined to overcome successive grand final defeats.

The Saints have announced the signatures of former Cats Cowan and Dean Gore, with the pair joining Bailey Cockerill, Jack and Jarrod Walter (Geelong Falcons), Aiden Grace and Sam Siggins (Clarence) at Kardinia Park.

St Mary’s co-coach Travis Robertson revealed Cowan, who played 16 AFL games in his eight seasons at Geelong as he dealt with a host of injuries, had been on the Saints’ radar for several months.

“It’s funny how footy circles work,” Robertson said.

“I played a couple of games down at Casterton and one of the guys I played with down there, Trent Nesbitt, had played in Daylesford and he told me that Daylesford had contacted Josh and he was pretty keen to stay in Geelong, so that was the instigator.

“We heard that and got in contact with him early and it’s been a long process.

“I know other clubs were talking to him too. He was talking to at least three others that I was aware of, but he’s someone that we were pretty keen to get from the outset so it was nice to get his commitment on Friday.”

Cowan was delisted by the Cats at the end of last season after battling persistent achilles and hamstring problems.

But the Saints are bullish that the speedy midfielder can play up to “14 or 15 games” in 2018.

“He did have to get a clear- ance as part of his exit strategy at the AFL Players Association that he was still fit for football and that was where he was at when we first contacted him,” Robertson revealed.

“He’s been back to see the Geelong doctors and he got a clearance, so he is running and he’s running reasonable distances and he’s quite confident that he will able to play because he’s learnt a lot about his body over time.

“We don’t expect him to play every game and we’ve put a strength and conditioning guy in at the club and put the best people around him, so it will be about him playing the right games and ensuring that he’s playing good footy at the end.”

Robertson said Cowan was eager to have an impact after several frustrating seasons.

“But it will be up to him,” Robertson said.

“He’s certainly keen to run in the midfield and he’s confident what he can do. And our ground’s not massive, so he’s not going to cover a heap of kilometres and it’s not the intensity of the AFL or VFL, so we’ll see how that suits his body.”

Gore, who was part of the deal that landed Patrick Dangerfield to Geelong, was delisted by the Crows at the end of the season.

He recently signed with the Cats’ VFL team and commitment to St Mary’s last week.

“I keep in contact with what’s going on with the VFL and we heard he was coming across to Geelong, so we got in touch with him early,” Robertson said.

“Given that we’ve got quite a few boys training with the VFL, we got him to come down to a training session on a Saturday morning and he got to meet a few of the boys.”