Depth focus after disappointing season

Tyler Pride is one of the few young players to feature in the Warkworth men’s first team.

The Warkworth Men’s first football team failed to clinch the top-four season finish they desired, coming ninth out of 12 teams in the NFF Men’s Conference.Team coach and centre back Cam Gray says there was a huge improvement in the team culture this season, but a string of injuries and a lack of focus let them down at times.

“The season started off really well, but the loss of a few key players really exposed the lack of depth in the club,” he says.

“When we lost our mid-field players Ken Lynch and Lee Draper, we were done for.”

Cam says a failure to breed younger players into the men’s team environment has been the club’s downfall.

To try and resolve this issue they will be doing talent spotting in January to select some players from older junior teams to join the men in pre-season.

Cam says the most enjoyable part of the season has been bringing a couple of young talents in Sam Stephens and James Woodall up to the first team level.

“Sam is a freak when it comes to football and is definitely one to watch, and James has gone from a fringe player last season to one of our most consistent starters.”

Looking to move forward, Cam will step down from his coaching role next season due to other commitments and hopes someone with some division one or premier experience will take up the job.

Cam also wants to start holding two trainings a week instead of one, but with a good portion of the team being older and having other commitments, this is not possible.

“We need the more experienced players who couldn’t factor two trainings a week into their schedule.

“Ken Lynch has brought real composure to the team this year, Rob Carty is one of the best forwards in the competition and we wouldn’t survive without keeper Simon Borich.”

Next season, the team will also lose forward Steve May, but will welcome Mark Borich and Gareth Southcombe and are in negotiations with a young talented centre back from East Coast Bays.

“There are certain areas on the field where we need to be stronger and hopefully by bringing in more players we can create some competition around those positions.

“About halfway through the season some people just went into cruise control and lost a bit of focus because we lacked that.”

Cam thinks next season the side would not be over ambitious in trying for a top-three finish.

“We took points off the top teams in the league this season, but winning the league is about being consistent and you can’t think any of the lower teams are an easy beat.”

The side did manage to make the Federation One Cup semi-final this season, where they were knocked out by Kerikeri.

“The cup can be a bit of a distraction from the league, but it’s great for some players to experience the different kind of football you get.”

Cam says despite not finishing in the league or cup where he would have liked, he has enjoyed every minute working with the team this season.