Footscray coach Stewart Edge says his side is feeling enthusiastic about their preparation for the revamped VFL competition this season.
The ‘Scray have already played in two scratch match wins against this pre-season, which has impressed the first-year senior coach given the cancellation of the 2020 season.
“There’s a real sense of enthusiasm amongst the VFL program, after such a long period of time off for them to be back in training and back to playing, there’s a lot of excitement,” Edge told westernbulldogs.com.au.
“We’ve been very lucky in many ways - our guys were absolutely primed to go last summer and have almost all returned with great enthusiasm to be back into it.
“Both the practice games we’ve had have been really promising (in terms of) rebuilding chemistry and connection amongst the playing group.
“They were both very healthy wins but we’re concentrating more on the fact of the mechanics of how we play, and the cohesion of how we play is really promising.”
Edge is looking forward to the challenge of facing interstate sides in a competition which now extends to Queensland and New South Wales.
He said while majority of the practice match squads have been non-selected AFL players so far, there’s been ample opportunity for the VFL-listed players to get a hit-out.
“We’re in good health at AFL level which means there’s a lot of the AFL boys filling the team, but we’ve also been able to integrate and play at least 16 of the VFL boys so far (which) has been pretty seamless,” he said.
“We’re always mindful of not compromising the preparation of AFL players vying for AFL selection, but it’s been great to get the VFL boys involved.
“(The new competition) is an interesting innovation, but I think it’s great to incorporate those teams.
“Any team who progresses through to the finals in a 21-team competition will have earnt the right to play-off in finals so it’s a nice part of the challenge.”
Footscray will finalise its 2021 playing list over the next week, with round one scheduled to begin in April.
