CONGUPNA THE ROAD
FOOTBALL
After solid growth during the past two seasons, the question on everyone’s lips at Memorial Park is — will 2022 be the year Congupna becomes a genuine force of Murray Football League?
Finishing fifth last year with eight wins and an impressive percentage of 134.67, The Road proved themselves more than able to compete with the league’s top sides.
The challenge for new coach and club legend Kevin O’Donoghue will be to maintain that strong form and continue to improve with a list of incredibly talented youngsters at his disposal.
But with the competition set to be as tight as ever, he said his squad had been hard at work in the pre-season trying to get better.
“We hope we can improve on last year; we have maintained our list very well and added a few, but it is a very strong league with a lot of teams recruiting really well, so it is going to be very difficult and something we look forward to,” O’Donoghue said.
“Over the pre-season we haven’t really looked to improve too much, we were there or thereabouts last year, so we are going to try and keep things more or less the same and just work on the basics in our skill level, fitness and game style.”
With perennial Murray league spearhead Daniel Campbell set to headline a potent forward line and Jimmy Boyer, Matt Di Bella and Fraser Hicks leading the charge through the midfield, there is no lack of star power to this Congupna line-up.
Throw in the return of familiar faces Tate Mifka and Lachie Sidebottom and the addition of Shepparton product Orien Kerr and O’Donoghue said fans could expect to see an attacking and free-flowing style of football from his team.
“We have got a very young and exciting list, so my philosophy is just let them play footy,” he said.
“We want to be quite attacking, but also get that balance right with our defence, but really our goal is to score as much as we can.
“Our midfield is quite strong and with a pretty potent forward line, so we have to utilise that as much as we can.”
As for his expectations for season 2022, he doesn’t want to put any limitations on what his team can achieve.
“We have no goals or expectations, we are just going to take each week as it comes, respect our opposition and go from there,” he said.
“It is quite exciting where we are at right now, we have a young list and there is a lot of potential there, but there is also a lot of hard work to do as well.”