Sport
17 April, 2023
Taylors Lake eye ladder improvement
Taylors Lake have recruited in an eye to move up the ladder after getting the wooden spoon in 2022 only managing 2 wins. Kyle Pinto is coach for 2023 and he has plenty of experience to bring to the side. He has spent a big portion of his career at...
Taylors Lake have recruited in an eye to move up the ladder after getting the wooden spoon in 2022 only managing 2 wins.
Kyle Pinto is coach for 2023 and he has plenty of experience to bring to the side. He has spent a big portion of his career at the Hampton Rovers but has spent time overseas which included winning an AFL Canada premiership with the central Blues in Toronto 10 years ago. He was at Minyip Murtoa in 2015 and most recently assistant coach at Edithvale-Aspendale in the Mornington Peninsula League.
James Magner whom played 19 games for the Melbourne Demons in 2012 is one of the recruits Taylors Lake hope will play most, if not all of their home games.
Pinto has also brought with him two midfielders – Will and Josh Hetherington. They are big bodies and will provide a lot of grunt on the inside. Will is a 6 foot 2 left footer coming from Inverloch-Kongwak and according to Pinto, will bring a lot to the team with a similar game style to Patrick Cripps.
Campbell Hetherington also joins from the Victorian Amateur Football Association. At 6 foot 4 he is a key forward with similar attributes to Eric Hipwood.
Pinto is also bullish on another recruit, 23 year old former Sandringham Dragon and Edithvale-Aspendale player, Troy Brimble. Brimble attended the AFL Draft Combine as an 18 year old and was rated with “Elite Power and Speed.”
Finally, former Dimboola senior coach Justin Beugelaar has also signed and will bring with him a wealth of experience.
After losing 9 games by over 100 points last year, including 5 losses by over 150 points, Pinto wants to establish a pressure base game style.
“If anyone said what will Taylors Lake bring this year, it would be a defensive first mindset. Defence is king. We need to defend harder when we don’t have the ball,” Pinto said.
“We need to be hard at the contest and then spread from the contest and when we have ball in hand we need to move it very quickly and be super aggressive from turnover. We have a lot of young kids with pace on the outside and aim to kill them off turnover,” Pinto added.
Whilst finals would be a massive achievement, Pinto acknowledges they are coming from a long way back and wants the team to show improvement by being in games for longer.
“What we want to see this year is to be more competitive and being in the game for longer and then hopefully winning. We want to play a brand of football that is not only exciting, but also defensive as well.”
“We don’t want to be a team where other clubs will prepare against us thinking we are an easybeat and they can rest players,” he concluded.
Taylors Lake will open their campaign away at Pimpinio.