RESERVES COACH REPORT Our 2021 Development season was challenging, not only for the players but also the coaches. We were a much younger and inexperienced team than last season, in fact, we were the youngest reserves team in the WAFL. We played 56 players overall this season, including 16 current or graduated Colts. I was very Glenn McCallum impressed with the maturity and eagerness of many of these boys who really embraced the challenge of the big step-up into a senior program. Connor Patterson was selected into our future leader’s program during pre-season and was captain of our team for a few games in the first half of the year, a huge achievement for his first season as a development player. We also had 11 players play their first game for the Club. The strong approach towards development from Beau Wardman will set the Club up perfectly in 2022.
14 SUBIACO FOOTBALL CLUB
The challenge for the coaches was to bring this young group together and build an environment that was filled with respect and care for each other as well as passion and commitment for the game. At the beginning of the year, we spoke as a group about how we can make their teammates better. I believe it took the boys about half the season to buy into this mindset and when we did; the whole team got better, and they started to play for each other rather than for themselves. This showed on the field winning the last three games of the season with the highlight beating Peel in the last game of the home-and-away season by 133 points and just missing out on finishing third on the ladder by 1.2%, finishing 9-7 win-loss record, a huge result for such a young group. Playing finals didn’t seem possible at the mid-season bye, with many personnel changes, but to the players credit and willingness to learn, we set ourselves some challenges and playing finals was a box we wanted to tick. Nick Menegola did a great job captaining for the first half of the year but sadly suffered a season-ending knee injury, the captaincy was then handed over to McKenzie Lawrence for the remainder of the season; Macca led the team with energy and did an outstanding job.
