South Rovers know it will see ebbs and flows in momentum throughout the 2024 Warrnambool and District league football season as it navigates a new-look playing list stacked with youth.
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Under new coach Luke Kenna, the Lions will be keen to see improvement on a seventh-place finish in 2023 without placing pressure or "expectations" on the squad.
"I've got no real expectations, we got a fair hiding against Dennington in the recent practice match so it's hard to know how we'll go," Kenna told The Standard.
"I'd like to think we'll just gradually improve as the year goes on.
"We're training away, it's a bit hard to get everyone available for the praccy matches but numbers are healthy at training as compared to previous years which is good.
"It's fairly unknown for me a little bit. I've got a good squad of 24, 25 at this stage so I've got a fair bit of an idea of how we'll look but I'm learning as I go a little bit."
The Lions took a fair hit to their playing stocks in the off-season, namely through the loss of key senior experience such as Justin Fedley (Allansford), Trent Harman (Merrivale), Sam Hodgins (Hawkesdale-Macarthur), Jaxen Dalton (Hawkesdale-Macarthur) and Beau Turland (Warrnambool).
But the additions of emerging players from rival clubs, namely the likes of Aiden Grant from Old Collegians and a swag of Warrnambool under 18 premiership players will see an abundance of senior opportunities throughout the season.
Kenna, a former Hampden league premiership player with Terang Mortlake, admitted it was going to take time for the new-look team to gel and wanted to strip back the game and allow the group to learn as a collective.
"We've lost about 15 from last year's senior side and maybe picked up, give or take, a similar amount," he said.
"We haven't got many talls so we'll try and move the footy quick, but every side tries to do that these days. It'll come down to effort a lot and game style it'll be probably dependant on who we play week to week.
"I think talks about game plans in bush footy can be a bit overrated in a way though. You want a way you do want to play but you've got to adapt to each opposition.
"You can tend to overdo things a bit. You don't want to complicate things too much for a young group, I just want to teach them key things and improve."
Kenna confirmed the club was hoping to appoint its captains, vice-captains and leadership group before round one against Kolora-Noorat on April 6.
Nick Creely
Sports reporter with The Standard
Sports reporter with The Standard
