A FRESH batch of the region’s most talented footballers were put through their paces as the Bendigo Pioneers seek to attack the new season.
Pioneers decision-makers were in Swan Hill on Wednesday for a regional pre-season testing day.
Talent operations lead Rick Coburn, high performance coach Sophie Perryman, boys program coach Danny O’Bree and girls program coach Whitney Kennedy were all keeping watch.
Data collected will go some way towards shaping playing lists for this season, but it wasn’t the main purpose of the day.
Coburn told The Guardian it was about getting players comfortable with the testing.
“That way, when they get into their 18th year and they’re hopefully down at Maribyrnong getting tested at the draft combine, they’re already pretty comfortable,” Coburn said.
“If that situation arises, then it might be their fourth or fifth time getting tested and they’re comfortable, and know what each test is, and it takes away a bit of that anxiety for them.
“The second purpose is of course for us to collect a bit of data on each player.
“The third purpose is to get out into our regions and let everyone know that we don’t do everything from Bendigo.”
Covering as far north as Sunraysia and all the way south of Bendigo, the Pioneers have been operating with satellite training sites in Bendigo, Mildura, Echuca and Swan Hill for much of the pre-season.
While that may pose some challenges, Coburn was adamant players were well placed for the rigours of professional football under this system – as evidenced by a number of impressive individual results on Wednesday.
“There are some really good kids right across the region, so it’s very important that we aren’t just the Bendigo Pioneers because of that,” he said.
“A lot of the other talent league regions might have one or two bases at most, so we like to think we do the best we can with all of our areas, while knowing that it can sometimes be a challenge to do so.”
Coburn said the Pioneers had good people on board to make it work.
“We’re fortunate to have people of the calibre of Luke Crow, who’s been facilitating our program here in Swan Hill over the summer,” he said.
“He’s done a power of work, as have all our coaches, in delivering quality training sessions that will give all the players the best possible opportunity to succeed in our program.”
Physical as well as mental attributes are taken into account when it came to selection decisions.
Coburn told participants self-motivation and drive were both high on his list of non-negotiables.
“That’s probably the advice to young people in general, that you’ve got to drive yourself and be self-motivated if you’re going to do well in whatever you do in life,” he said.
“Certainly, the program wants to work on the person – in other words, better person, better player.
“That’s becomes a bit easier once we finalise our lists, as when we have big lists it’s a bit harder to achieve that and that’s why each individual having their own self-motivation is so important.”
