Lang Lang playing-coach Ben Dwyer, president Adrian Jenkins and newly appointed reserves coach Craig Parke are in preparation for the Tigers’ international rules match on Friday. 76751
By Jarrod Potter
LANG LANG Football Club has been hard at work in its pre-season training but the last few sessions have been a little bit jarring for the Tigers.
They’ve been training with the round ball instead of the oval variety in preparation for this Friday night in their international rules match against the Garryowen Gaelic Football Club at 7pm.
“We’ve done one session with the round ball last week and will do another one this Wednesday night,” Lang Lang playing-coach Ben Dwyer said.
“We had an intra-club last Wednesday night with the round ball and the international rules.”
“Kicking is the biggest challenge. Our fitness is great, the rules aren’t too different and it isn’t too difficult to adjust, but kicking remains the challenge.”
The Tigers want to see everyone come out to support the Gaelic match, with the potential for it to expand to include other clubs next year.
“We hope the towns from around the area will come down Friday night,” Lang Lang president Adrian Jenkins said.
“Next year we might be able to expand on it and have a round robin against the Irish, but we want everyone here to watch a game you don’t see very often.
“If we can get a lot of communities here, not just Lang Lang but Kooweerup, Catani, Nyora and others, there’s a chance it will be even bigger next year and we can involve more teams.”
Lang Lang received a boost to its playing numbers with a dozen sign-ups this week and numbers never dropping below 35 at training.
“Pre-season has been going well, we haven’t dropped below 35 and I reckon we had 42 for the first drill last Monday,” Dwyer said. “You kind of feel a bit like there’s a groundswell of support for the club.”
A lot of the guys from last year feel there’s unfinished business from last year and we should’ve won a final and gone a bit deeper.
“To at least win a final this year would be par and to go a bit deeper would be improvement.”
We’ve got a couple of players who have come back,” Lang Lang president Adrian Jenkins said.
“Whenever a club gets 12 new blokes on the first day, you can tell your club is healthy and strong.
“Everyone has seemed to bring down a brother, work mate or a mate, so that’s good to see.
“They bring them down to have a look at the club and they quickly sign on.”
In other news from Lang Lang, Craig Parke is the new reserves coach, Joey Campbell will coach the under-18s, Bluey Dowson with the under-16s and Mick Seuren is the under-14s coach.
Parke’s history at Cora Lynn and Narre Warren has been fruitful, featuring in the last six grand finals from the sideline and intends for Lang Lang reserves to achieve that as well.
“The reserves didn’t make the finals last year, and I’ve been in six successive grand finals, five with Cora Lynn and one with Narre Warren,” Parke said.
“We played in grand finals in those years, so that’s what we’ll aim for with Lang Lang.”
Lang Lang has a Labor Day long weekend practice match against Fish Creek and faces Phillip Island on 17 March before the first round catch up match against Cora Lynn.
