Lakers’ recruiting success
Taylors Lake’s football department headed south down the Western Highway after last season – searching for answers.
They might have found them, because an impressive entourage has followed them back to the Wimmera.
Last season, Taylors Lake was perennial easy beats of Horsham District league.
Football leadership at Taylors Lake decided it required drastic recruitment of players and a new coach.
Club president Travis Mackley said club improvement started with the appointment of senior coach Kyle Pinto, the restoration of its under-17s team, and the recruitment of experienced senior players.
Pinto, of Melbourne, made a ‘tree change’ to the Wimmera at the start of this year.
He said a new direction for the football club in 2023 started with long pre-christmas conversations between himself and Mr Mackley.
He said a suite of new recruits would fill gaps across the field and top-up the club’s young playing list with experience.
“A lot of the players we have brought in will take big midfield minutes, but they will still complement the young existing players at the club,” he said.
The Lakers have poached two ‘big-bodied’ midfielders in Will and Josh Hetherington, as well as key-position player Campbell Hetherington, out of the Victorian Amateur Football Association.
Former Sandringham Dragon and Edithvale-aspendale player, Troy Brimble, 22, of Melbourne, will join the Hetherington brigade in the Lakers’ midfield.
Former Greater Western Rebels squad members and Horsham-grown footballers Riley Hall and Ryan Gebert will also wear the red-and-white this season.
Pinto said the club had signed former Dimboola senior coach Justin Beugelaar as well as former Melbourne Football Club footballer James Magner who, after a short AFL career, had stints at Sandringham, Casey, and Port Melbourne Victorian Football League clubs.
Pinto said ‘fast footy’ would be his emphasis in 2023, aided by a defensive ‘mindset’ that he hoped would prevent a repeat of the side’s string of excessive 2022-season losses.
“Ball in hand, we want to play fast; ball out of hand, it will be about pressure,” he said.
“We have young, quick movers in the side this season, so it makes sense to play to our strengths.
“Evident by our multiple 150-point losses, our defensive skills just were not there last season.
“We won’t outline the quantifiable wins and losses we are searching for this year, but simply, we need to improve dramatically on-field.
“If we lose, they need to be closer losses than previously.”
In his playing days, Pinto had spent a stint with Wimmera league club Minyip-murtoa, before he returned to Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs.
Taylors Lake will start its 2023 season with their round-one clash against Pimpinio, at Pimpinio.
The Lakers defeated Pimpinio in round-13 last season to claim their first 2022 win.