Dragons already look to breathe fire into next season

BELL PARK coach Luke Rayner will waste little time in planning for 2018 as he looks to move on from his side’s straight-sets exit from the GFL finals.

The Dragons finished second on the ladder but were beaten in convincing fashion by St Mary’s in the qualifying final, and then backed up with a disappointing 14-point loss to Colac on Sunday.

Rayner said that while there would be a period of reflection on what went wrong in the past fortnight, it was imperative to focus on how the club was going to improve.

“There are definitely areas that we will have to address and identify, and that will be done in the coming week or two,” Rayner said.

“You get to work in terms of planning and preparation and your recruiting, so you look to put a group together that is going to take the next step.

“We finished second and lost a couple of finals, so the aim again for us is to create an environment and a group of players that we think can take us to the next step.

“We’ve obviously started the process in terms of next year and signing up our guys, so that will continue.

“We’ll see the areas we need to bolster and improve, and while we haven’t been active you start to target (players) a little bit more over the next week or two in terms of making contact with those guys that you really want to get on board.”

One area that the Dragons will need to address is bolstering their tall timber in the middle of the ground, with veteran big man Zane Vail calling time following the loss to Colac after 210 games.

Rayner praised the 2011 premiership ruckman’s stellar contribution over a distinguished career.

“He’s obviously been a great warrior for this footy club and servant’s probably not the right word, but a great contributor,” Rayner said.

“His legacy, I think, will be far-reaching. He will get referred to a lot in future years for his effort and his commitment and his competitiveness, and his want and his will to win.

“That should be something that will influence our footy club forever, in terms of people that coached or players that have played with him.

“He has done an amazing job and rucked pretty much the whole year . . . and at 35 that’s a pretty good effort, so we couldn’t have asked any more of him.”