The co-coaches are in no doubt a cornerstone of their team’s success is not the game each week, but the training twice every week.
“Our players get to train with one of the best sides in country Victoria, every week, and that sets the standard,” Murphy said.
“We reckon 90 per cent of our players are senior quality, and that puts selection pressure on everyone, and lifts the performance of everyone,” he said.
“And any players who come back into the side from the seniors, or who are coming back from injury, slot right in – there is a great team attitude from top to bottom.”
Hall agreed, saying every player in our side “wants to be better” whether they’re on the training track or the field on game day.
He laughed when asked if the two non-playing coaches ran a good cop-bad cop routine to keep their charges under control.
“No question, Troy is the bad guy,” Hall said.
“He likes to get into them a bit, I’m a teacher so I have a slightly different approach,” he said.
“But it seems to work, we haven’t dropped a game all season and we are going into Sunday’s game against Shepp with our eyes wide open.
“The boys have all worked incredibly hard to get us here and they don’t plan to let it slip away now.”
The coaches said while they were at full strength, there were a couple of players who still had to get through the week, because at this stage everyone is going to tell you they’re in tip-top condition.
“We have got a lot of talent, we’ve got the 2026 Abikhair medallist, and we have got a huge number of players who could step into any senior side, we’re good to go,” Murphy said.
