SELECTION NIGHT: weekend football teams for the BFNL, HDFNL, LVFNL, NCFL, CVFLW
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FOR Elmore coach Dylan Friedberger it's very much a case of "unfinished business".
Friedberger is determined to lead the Bloods back into the Heathcote District league finals and will get his chance next season following his reappointment as Elmore senior coach.
Friedberger has jointly coached the Bloods this year with star big man Dylan Gordon, but will do so on his own next season.
"Dylan has a second child on the way, so he wants to be able to focus on his family," Friedberger said this week.
Next year will be Friedberger's fourth at the helm of the Bloods, although, his first in 2020 never got started from a playing point of view with COVID forcing the abandonment of the entire season.
I really want to make it a better place from when I got here and to me that's playing finals
- Dylan Friedberger
The Bloods went 3-9 and finished seventh in last year's shortened season and are likely to end this season again in seventh position with three wins.
"There's definitely unfinished business there from my point of view," Friedberger said.
"I really want to make it a better place from when I got here and to me that's playing finals, so that's still a great drive for me."
Friedberger has been forced to do the bulk of his coaching from the sidelines this year, with a pair of head knocks restricting him to just four games - the last of which was against White Hills in round five.
However, it is his intention to return next season as a playing coach of the Bloods.
"I'm definitely going to give it one more go next year," Friedberger said.
"The idea is to play as a deep forward and, hopefully, there's no more knocks."
The Bloods face a tough last day of the season at home on Saturday when they play ladder-leader Lockington-Bamawm United, which is ramping up for a premiership tilt in the coming weeks.
"Our whole mindset these past few weeks has been to treat our last three games as like our finals series, so for us it's our grand final coming up against the benchmark side," Friedberger said.
"We haven't played four quarters of consistent footy once this season, so that's what we'll be working towards on Saturday.
"We do have a lot of injuries, but we want to go out there on Saturday and aim to take it right up to Locky and, hopefully, finish the year off with a win."
SATURDAY'S ROUND 18 HDFNL GAMES:
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