Esperance Football Club League coach Roger Parsons had a memorable day on Saturday as the Bulldogs celebrated his 300th senior match with the Club. Bursting through the banner with his son Riley, Parsons contributed on the scoreboard in the League clash, kicking three goals in the 88 point victory for Esperance over the Lions, 16.12 (108) to 3.2 (20).
Gibson’s Torin Pechar and Esperance’s Tyson Graham have been named as the captain and vice-captain for the Esperance District Football Association’s tilt at the annual Great Southern Colts Carnival in Kulin this weekend.
EDFA director Chris Oversby said he was confident of a strong showing at the carnival, noting that the side would be more experienced than previous campaigns.
The squad will be looking improve on its fourth-place finish at last year’s carnival, going down to Goldfields by 13 points, 1.15 (21) to 1.2 (8), in an extraordinary third and fourth place playoff.
“We have got quite a lot of blokes in the older age bracket, (18-19), but because we are a smaller league we are allowed to take up to four 20 year olds,” Oversby said.
“The older guys predominantly are all playing League football and a couple of them have been doing well in the Ressies.
“Those 19-year-olds that aren’t playing League are playing pretty solid footy in the Reserves then on top of that we have got a smattering of highly-talented 16 and 17 year olds.
“We are pretty confident we are taking over a really strong side but you never know what the other sides are going to come up with.”
EDFA opens its account on Saturday morning against Lower South-West before clashing with Ongerup and Great Southern in the afternoon.
“We are up against Great Southern Storm which draws from six sides in the Albany competition,” Oversby said.
“They are a city so they have got upwards of 30-40,000 people to draw their talent pool from, and the Great Southern Storm run a development program run all year round.
“They run programs all year round for their kids whereas our young blokes just play footy during the footy season.”
Oversby said the Association had presented a solid squad despite the ongoing strain to get players to commit.
“The struggle that the EDFA have always had in taking away any representative teams, whether they be Colts, Seniors or Women’s, is people work so we have to take time off work to get there and we don’t always take our strongest team.
“With the Colts, most of them have apprenticeships which makes it difficult to say to the boss I need the Friday afternoon off (to play footy).
“In saying that, most of the boys have been able to make themselves available.
“There is a really good mix of height and speed (in the team) which is something that previously we have struggled to get our bigger, stronger guys to go away because of their work commitments.”
“We are fortunate enough that a couple of the local young blokes, Luke Maloney and Jaxon Meyer, who are currently up playing Colts at Subiaco have been released to play at the carnival.”
Oversby thanked the sponsors of the EDFA, which make it possible for the team to attend the carnival.
“None of this happens without the help of sponsorship and volunteers such as Tyreline Australia, in particular Jeff Sparrowhawk and also Michael Harding of Freight Lines Group has donated the use of one of his school busses to take the boys over there, Mark Elliott is driving the bus and Southeast Petroleum is donating the fuel for the trip,” Oversby said.
All matches of the carnival are played at Freebairn Recreation Centre and will be live streamed on YouTube through the Classic Clashes TV page.
