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Sharks look to new blood

By Mr Dandalooa

Coming from Perth last season, football manager Damien Gaspar knows it’s a long road ahead for East Fremantle to make the top four this season.

It’s been nearly 10 years since the Sharks have made a grand final appearance, and while the blues have had an ideal start to season 2009, Gaspar refuses to become complacent.

“It’s 2009 and we could be writing our own names in the history books for all the wrong reasons,” he tells FootyGoss about the club’s near-decade hiatus from finals footy.

“But we’re keen to make amends for the past and we have a great leadership group who look after the young blokes and reinforce the fact that it’s a long season and that we need to retain our focus.”

With a near full list to choose from, the Sharks are looking to their young star recruits and await the return of Courtney Johns, who is expected to put on the blue and white in round six or seven.

“And the return of Courtney Johns, he’ll give us some flexibility and Courtney can play a variety of roles working through full-forward, centre-half forward and centre-halfback and he tells me he’s comfortable playing at either end,” Gaspar says.

“We’re travelling all right because we’ve got a full list to choose from, we’ve got a limited amount of injuries and our main injury concern at the moment is Courtney Johns, and I guess Don Foster with a slight hamstring.

“We’ve almost got a full list to choose from and I guess a lot of that comes down to the fact that we’re very happy with our strength and conditioning department; the players are well-looked after in regards to their conditioning and their rehab, so they’re monitored very closely.”

While coach Shane Woewodin had a shocker start to his coaching debut, East Fremantle have now won nine of their past 10 games and look set to continue that record this season.

Woewodin has admitted the team needs to improve basic skill levels this year, but was happy with the Sharks’ performance in round one.

With the likes youngsters Connor Davidson, a prolific left-footer, 17-year-old Kane Lucas, Selby Lee-Steere, powerful runner Brad Sheppard and hard worker Lewis Fasolo, it could be a season where the Sharks finally come of age.