LVFNL 2024 season football preview: PYRAMID HILL

The Bulldogs are giving themselves every chance to break their drought.

Last year they fell just 16 points short of Marong in the grand final and the Panthers were the only team to defeat the Dogs for the season.

Leading the Bulldogs' inclusions is midfielder Damon Hemphill from Bellarine league club Modewarre.

Ex-captain Mick Dundon, Braidy Dickens and Brad Ladson return to the Bulldogs after short stints elsewhere.

Jaydon Cowling (Charlton) and Ben Knight (North Bendigo) add some depth and flexibility to the club's midfield group.

Knight previously played with Calivil United in the LVFNL where he won the 2017 Harding Medal as the LVFNL's best and fairest winner.

Hemphill, Cowling and Knight were signed to fill the void left by key midfielder departures Declan Slingo and Billy Micevski.

Just a couple of departures and several inclusions - looks like you'll have a deeper squad to choose from this year?

"We've probably got about eight, nine or 10 players that could play midfield, half-forward or half-back roles.

"We'll probably use the first half of the season to run them all through the midfield and see what our best mix is.

"It will be a bit of trial and error to see what our best team is.

"It's good to have depth to go through the middle when you're bound to have injuries at some stage through the year.

"We've matched the couple of players we've lost and we've got some extras in on top of that.

"We're probably going to have 26 or 27 players up for selection in round one and the players who do miss out are going to be very unlucky."

Leading goalkicker from last year Will Perryman has left the club, are you confident you have enough firepower forward of the ball?

"Everyone is probably after key position players and we'd love to get a six foot nine full-forward, but they're pretty hard to come by.

"We just wanted to make sure we have as much depth as possible and a lot of our midfielders can play forward as well and can be dangerous match-ups.

"While they mightn't have the height, they're agile on the ground and can take a contested mark.

"I'm comfortable that they can play a role in the forward line."

Will we see anything different from you this year in terms of game style?

"We haven't reinvented the wheel too much.

"We were obviously pretty close last year without quite getting there. We've needed to tidy up defensively and we've worked on a plan A and a plan B for different scenarios.

"The changes we've made are nothing too drastic."

You have some young players that look set to help improve the senior side.

"We've got some players in that 21-year-old bracket that have probably now played around 50 senior games.

"They're still learning their craft, but at the same time they're becoming some of our most important players.

"For example, Zac Dingwall is 21 and he's cementing a key defensive spot where he can take on some of the best key forwards in the competition."

There's been plenty of talk about Bridgewater in the off-season and Marong is chasing a third-straight flag, is there a chance you can fly under the radar this year?

"We haven't had much publicity which is completely fine.

"I think the competition is going to be a fair bit stronger. Marong will be strong again, Bridgewater has obviously recruited well and Serpentine has recruited quite well.

"Last year all the hype was around Marong and then we were the next tier down in the public's eyes.

"This year there's going to be four or five teams fighting pretty hard and there'll be good games of footy every week."

Does the fact the competition will potentially tighten up create a bit of a buzz around the playing group?

"It means you can't afford to just roll up to a game just expecting you're going to win.

"There's going to be games where it's going to be full-on for four quarters. Take the foot off the pedal and you'll get overrun.

"Hopefully, we get some finals-like games through the home and away season."

ROUND 1 - April 13

v BL-Serpentine (a)

ROUND 2 - April 20

v Calivil United (h)

ROUND 3 - April 27

v Marong (a)

ROUND 4 - May 4

v Bridgewater (h)

ROUND 5 - May 11

v Mitiamo (a)

ROUND 6 - May 18

v bye

ROUND 7 - May 25

v Newbridge (h)

ROUND 8 - June 1

v Inglewood (a)

ROUND 9 - June 15

v MGYCW (a)

ROUND 10 - June 22

v BL-Serpentine (h)

ROUND 11 - June 29

v Calivil United (a)

ROUND 12 - July 6

v Marong (h)

ROUND 13 - July 13

v Bridgewater (a)

ROUND 14 - July 20

v Mitiamo (h)

ROUND 15 - July 27

v bye

ROUND 16 - August 3

v Newbridge (a)

ROUND 17 - August 10

v Inglewood (h)

ROUND 18 - August 17

v MGYCW (h)