Swifts unpredictable
Many football leaders across Horsham District league often have an uneasy pre-season feeling about Swifts club.
There always seems to be a sense of uncertainty about the southeast force, which goes about its preparations in Stawell in relative isolation from the rest of the competition.
‘What have they been doing? What’s the word from North Park? Will they be up for it or will they fall away this year?’ – all are familiar questions surrounding the Baggies.
It’s a curious phenomenon and isn’t as strong as other clubs and perhaps stems from Swifts in the past, when loaded with Stawell Gold Mine employees, often had to swing a variety of selection changes to deal with availability issues.
Then again, it might also be something completely different.
Whatever the case, Swifts always seems to have opposition teams looking over their shoulders at this time of year and little has changed in the lead-up to the 2019 season.
For Scott Carey, this year sharing senior coaching responsibilities with Daniel Parkin, the build-up and goals are far from complicated. He said the primary goal for his team was to win as many early games as possible and to develop a higher level of consistency in form.
“I like to think we can get back to competing against the top three,” he said.
“We played some decent footy during last year and showed glimpses of what we could do.
“But consistency is the key and it will be the teams that can lock down early wins that will gain the advantage.
“That’s something we’re hoping to achieve. Getting early wins will be important for us.”
Carey, who has been sole coach for the past three years, said leading in a joint role with Navarre star Parkin was exciting.
“Things are tacking along nicely. Obviously the addition of Daniel as co-coach is huge for the club and the boys overall,” he said.
“The move brings in new ideas and a different way of doing things and rejuvenates the playing group.
“It hasn’t taken long to adjust and seems to be already paying dividends.”
Carey said Swifts had, similar to most clubs, experienced players leaving and joining the club.
“We obviously target a few players to add to what we needed,” he said.
“We managed to secure Todd Matthews from Stawell early and young Ben Leong has also slotted in well.
“Wimmera League under-17 best and fairest Jacob Salmi is back where he started as a junior to play open-age football and wants to play with his brother Zach. He’s a huge inclusion.”
Carey said he also looked forward to the evolution of rising young talent Jackson Healy.
“He’s showing maturity straight out of the gate and I feel he will be able to contribute strongly to the seniors this season,” he said.
Offsetting recruits this year are significant departures including former assistant coach and goal-kicking forward Andrew Cameron who has signed with Great Western.
Swifts are also unsure about the availability time-frame involving dual club best and fairest Ben Taylor, who will have commitments with NT Thunder in Darwin football for part of the season.
“We hope to get Ben down for a few games and if things pan out we might have him towards the end of the year. He’s a bit of a loss but hopefully we can replace him,” Carey said.
He said regardless of the lineup, the expectation was that Swifts would play a free-flowing defensively driven brand of football.
“The hope is that if someone came to a game and had never seen us play, they would go away thinking that our blokes are playing for each other – doing what it takes to help their team-mates,” he said.
Swifts president Steve Hoffmann said the club would continue to place a strong emphasis on junior development.
“It’s been something we’ve been working on for four to five years. It’s something the club is going to build on,” he said.
“The aim is always to improve on the previous year and while last year wasn’t an improvement based on results, hopefully our young team can gain a lot of experience out of that.”
Mr Hoffmann confirmed a continuation of strong financial support from sponsors led by CKS Engineering, which has backed the club for more than a decade.
Swifts will have a practice match against Navarre at North Park in Stawell on March 24.