NEW Huntly coach Stacy Fiske isn’t worried about setting a target of wins for the Hawks in the Heathcote District Football League this year.
For 24-year-old Fiske, his No.1 aim for the Hawks is to earn the respect of their opponents and to build a much-needed winning culture at the club.
The struggles of the Hawks over the past decade have been well documented, with the club claiming the past 10 senior wooden spoons dating back to 2002, during which it has won just nine of 160 games.
But Fiske’s message to his players during the pre-season has been to forget about the past and look to the future.
“The biggest thing we want to do is change the stigma of Huntly,” Fiske said yesterday.
“If you talk to people down the street who don’t know much about football, they seem to know Huntly has had 10 wooden spoons in a row and ask, ‘why would you want to go and play for them?’
“So we really want to change the culture into a winning one and gain a fair bit of respect back from the league and the community.
“We obviously want to be successful this year, but we want to be successful for a long period of time, so that’s what we’re working towards.
“We’re not worried about the past, it’s all about moving forward.”
Fiske is pleased with how his recruiting is progressing during the pre-season.
Among the arrivals at Trickey’s Diesel Oval are Golden Square duo Adrian McErvale and the pacy Matt Klein-Breteler, who are both premiership players with the Bulldogs.
McErvale is an assistant coach at Huntly, where he has already had a major impact on the playing group with his work-ethic on the training track.
“Those two guys know what’s expected to be successful, so their experience will help to bring in that change of what Huntly needs for a winning culture,” Fiske said.
“We’ve been stuck in a bit of a rut for a while now because we haven’t had anyone to really show us that winning expectation and how to go about it.
“You’ve got to make a few sacrifices along the way to have that ultimate success, and you can see the change in training when those blokes are there.
“The guys who have been at the club for a while now look around and see Adrian McErvale pushing through a bit harder, or they hear about what training he’s doing away from those four hours with us through the week.
“So it’s having a really good impact on not only the new players, but the players who have been here for a while as well.”
The Hawks have also landed the signature of Goulburn Valley Football League inter-league representative Ryan Semmel.
Midfielder Semmel won the Shepparton Swans’ best and fairest last year, as well as the GVFL’s Forty Winks media award.
“He’s going to be a very handy pick-up for us,” Fiske said.
“He’s had a lot of experience and is similar to McErvale in that he’s a good on-baller who will be able to teach our younger blokes how to go about it.”
And Craig Crichton from Pyramid Hill has joined the Hawks.
Crichton was a Loddon Valley Football League inter-league player last year who Fiske says can fill a variety of roles for his new team.
“He’s been playing senior footy since he was 15 or 16 and probably his biggest impact so far has been with his fitness and work ethic,” Fiske said.
“We’ve done fitness testing and he has been blowing blokes out of the water, which makes the others realise they need to step it up a bit. He can play as a running half-back flanker, as a wingman, in the midfield, or also sit in the forward line... he gives us that bit of an X-factor.”
Jeremy Molloy, who captained Eaglehawk’s under-18s last year and had a taste of senior football in the Bendigo Football League, is also returning to the club.
Huntly will hold a training camp at Boort this weekend.
The Hawks open their season on April 7 with a trip to take on Leitchville-Gunbower in round one.
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