Football
17 April, 2024
Ararat 2024 Season Preview
A look at Ararat's 2024 season in both football and netball and a message from President David Hosking.
Having already played on Good Friday against Stawell, the new look Ararat team was on display, in the 14-point-loss.
Tex Korewha and Ben Taylor have departed the club, but they have brought back Sam Cronin and Xav Vearing whilst a new face is Ben McKenzie from Watsonia in the Northern Football Netball League in Melbourne.
With the bulk of the 2023 premiership team remaining, Tom Mills, who is co-coaching with Tom Williamson said that having a connection already there with a lot of the team has made things easier in pre-season.
"Most of the players are good mates and we have a good connection with them and everyone has fit in well, Mills said.
When asked who is going to take his game to the next level this year, Mills was confident about teenager Sonny Kettle.
Kettle showed signs last year in the midfield and forward line and Mills said he has trained hard all pre-season and is raring to go.
"Sonny is going to be a really good player. He will be playing mainly centre this year and he has put on 5kg of muscle and is fit," Mills said.
Despite the loss on Good Friday, Ararat is still going to be one of the teams to beat this year.
The Rats host Horsham this week.
NETBALLERS LOOK FOR IMPROVEMENT
The Ararat netballers are a young team this year and improvement is their aim in 2024.
Sally Noble has returned following a long stint coaching at Sebastopol, where she coached the team to many finals and she is looking forward to elevating Ararat to the next level.
Two juniors have been brought up, Sophie Cooper and Demi Bligh and they have been training well.
In the Good Friday match, both showed they will be good for the Rats this year.
Noble said the aim is to achieve finals and then see what happens.
"You always want to achieve finals and at the end of the day, the ultimate goal is a premiership and we believe we can improve enough this year to make finals," Noble said.
"We have a young team, and it is about getting that confidence up and working on that."
Noble said they have focused on three things this pre-season.
"We want strong line defense and working on easy fast exit through the midcourt and goal accuracy," Noble said.
"We are bonding and getting to know each other and the belief is there. We just have to now take it out onto the court.
"My motto for them this year is 'work smarter, not harder' and they are taking that on board."
FROM THE PRESIDENT
When Ararat lost coach Matt Walder, they looked externally and internally for a coach and club president David Hosking said appointing Tom Williamson and Tom Mills as co-coach made a lot of sense for the club.
"With Tom Mills being an ex-VFL player and Tom Williamson, ex-AFL, and already playing in our system, we thought they would be a good fit," Hosking said.
"They both have high football IQs and both know the game and can articulate it and explain it to the young players.
"They also have respect of the players which is very important also so for us it wasn't a hard decision. We had two obvious coaches within our midst, signed them up and all the indications so far is that they are doing a good job."
On the Netball, they identified height and depth as the important thing and Hosking said they were just stagnating and something had to change.
"Without being too critical, it is probably fair to say that we had stagnated and finished mid-table for a few years in A-Grade," Hosking said.
"We were undersized and needed to add height and depth and we have done that. Our numbers are great in netball and we can field a C Reserve grade, something we haven't been able to do.
"The other two grades and juniors have been in finals, and we were looking to get a little bit better in A Grade and it has been an incremental change and hopefully having Sally in we will be able to shoot more goals."
"It is great to have Sally back. She is a former A Grade player and has a thorough knowledge of netball and hopefully, she can help us improve."