ONE of the intriguing questions heading into the 2008 Bendigo Bank Bendigo Football League season is: will this be the year of the Kangaroo Flat revival? For the past five years the Roos have been the whipping boys of the competition, winning just five of their past 84 games since the start of the 2003 season.
The last of those victories came 21 games ago against North City in round 15 of the 2006 season.
However, season 2008 shapes as the start of an exciting new era for Kangaroo Flat.
Firstly, the club has secured three-time Colbinabbin premiership coach and former Metricon Bendigo Bombers reserves coach Darryl Wilson to lead the club.
Wilson indicated upon his appointment in October, last year, that he was in it for the long haul at Dower Park, which is significant considering that since Derrick Filo departed Kangaroo Flat as coach in 2001, the club has turned over five coaches in six years.
Secondly, the Roos have been successful in luring a host of exciting young talent that has built depth at the club and created strong competition for positions.
And plenty of that new talent will be on display against Golden Square at Country Vet Oval today when the Roos open their 2008 campaign.
‘‘We haven’t set any expectations in regards to numbers of wins for this year,’’ Wilson said yesterday.
‘‘I will keep saying that we are looking to be competitive, but obviously with being competitive, we do want to win some games.
‘‘It’s going to take us a while to gel because we’ve had such a big turnover of players, but if you take Chris Harrington and Brendan Hehir out of our team for this week, we only have an average age of 19 1/2.
‘‘We still have a young and vulnerable list in relation to senior footy experience, so it’s going to take time.’ ‘We think we’ve covered some good ground with recruiting and picked up some good guys, but it’s about the future as well.’’ The Roos have selected nine new recruits in their side for today’s clash, with six of them - Hehir, new captain Tyrone Downie, Xavier Norden, Matt Brown, Andrew Gladman and Tim Kelly - all named in what is a new-look forward line.
‘‘In terms of gelling we have played three practice matches and all players who will play on Saturday have played one or two, if not all three of those games,’’ Wilson said.
‘‘We won two of our practice matches (against Kerang and Wycheproof) and were competitive against Kyabram, so we’re really excited about this weekend.
‘‘I look forward to people under-estimating us, that’s fine, but we understand that we have to build respect.
‘‘I understand we are the underdogs because of our past record, we have to live with that record and change things.’’ Golden Square has had the wood over Kangaroo Flat for the past seven years, with the Bulldogs having won 14 straight encounters against the Roos.
The last time Kangaroo Flat beat Golden Square was in round eight, 2001, when the Roos prevailed 13.17 (95) to 10.15 (75) over the eventual premiers that season.
Today will mark the start of Mark Adamson’s coaching career at Golden Square, while recruits Michael Bateman, Mark Lloyd, Daniel McLaughlin and new assistant coach Nick Carter have also been selected to take on the Roos.
‘‘Kangaroo Flat has got a lot of new players and they have obviously got a fairly accomplished coach, so we expect their structures to be reasonably good,’’ Adamson said.
‘‘The reality is they have a fair bit of ground to make up from last week, but we expect to be running out this weekend against a much improved outfit.’’