By Callum Ludwig
After a tough year in Division One with two wins and 7th position to their name, Healesville FNC is looking to bounce back under new senior coach and club life member Dean De Munk.
Following a year with the U19’s side, De Munk is looking to keep ahold of his young talent and ‘blood’ a youthful and exciting senior side.
De Munk said he is honoured to be heading the senior side this year.
“I’m very excited and certainly feel very privileged, we’ve got some great young talent at the club, and I’m very keen to help foster and develop that young talent with the assistance of the experienced players,” he said.
“That’s what gave me the hunger to coach to be honest, I could see some emerging talent and I wanted to be a part of their journey.”
The side even managed to pinch some players from neighbouring EFL sides, with Kobe Brown, Jesse Bates and Lochie Oliver coming in from Montrose, Mooroolbark and Silvan respectively.
De Munk said the atmosphere around the club has been magnificent.
“Very enthusiastic and numbers have been fantastic, we’ve had some nights where we’ve had 50 players on the track, which hadn’t happened for a number of years,” he said.
“The group are excited, they’re willing to learn, they’re willing to work and they want to see some success.”
Healesville FNC and their home at Don Road Sporting Complex have been a pillar of the Yarra Valley sports community, even hosting the beloved Rett Syndrome Awareness Cup for the fourth time this year.
De Munk said Healesville is looking to improve on and off the field this year, and has learned a lot from the preseason.
“Everyone needs to work hard and when you work hard collectively, the results come, we want more people coming through the gate and supporting our players because we plan on winning games,” he said.
“We’ve worked hard with three solid practice matches, which has given us magnificent preparations four Round One against tough opposition, which has helped expose our weaknesses and help us identify areas that we need to work on.”
Healesville is up against Berwick Springs, who finished in 8th spot just below Healesville last season, in what is sizing up to be a hotly-contested encounter between two young sides.
De Munk said there are some young stars at Healesville who could be set to breakthrough this season.
“I am looking forward to Zac Fawdry taking the next step, and for Sam Gebert and Brandon Murphy to step up,” he said.
“But we’ve also had solid preseason from our captain Daniel Plozza, and other more experienced guys Max Donegan, Tennyson Amarant and Shaun Donkin. Despite Max and Tennyson being 21, they’ve become some of the more experienced players at the club.”
The Bloods women’s football side has been training with the U18 Girls team from the junior club, in an effort to encourage a strong relationship between the junior and senior sides to sell the vision of a prosperous Healesville women’s side.
In the netball department, Healesville have had good numbers for training and remain hopeful of being able to field enough numbers across all senior sides. Nicole Schoche and Jodi Chandler are the two coaches for the 2022 season.
