Q&A with Bradd Dalziell

We caught up with Bradd Dalziell following his first pre-season at the helm of our Development League.

Q1. How have you settled into the new role?

I’ve settled in quite well, it has been good having a different role at the club than I’ve had in the previous five years.  I guess it’s given me a better insight into the dynamics of our younger playing group. It’s exciting that I’m able to put my past experience as a player and a coach at WAFL and AFL level into developing our young kids to play league football this year or as soon as possible.

Q2. How have you found the move from assistant to head coach?

It has been fairly easy, Bill and the assistants as well as Brad Dodd have made it a pretty seamless transition. I’ve got some good assistants around me in Jayden Heuer who brings a lot of experience from development programs at Peel, and Jesse Laurie who is a WAFL premiership player at Claremont. They are both like me I guess, junior in their role, but our background is heavy in youth development - so in that aspect the transition has been fairly easy because the resources around me are good resources!

Q3. What are you trying to bring to the program?

Just consistency over the whole club. We want a winning culture at the East Fremantle Football Club and the way we are going to do that is by putting pressure on players for positions in the team. If we have a good development squad and league team it is going to result in success for the club.

I guess our main role is to help transition the colts players from last year into the senior program and prepare the guys in the development league as quickly as they can so they can play league football.

Q4. What did you take from the first pre-season hit out last week?

I guess the big focus point of the weekend and the first game of the year is to play to our strengths and the Sharks brand of football we’ve been trying to promote all season. It was a fantastic hitout, a lot of new faces to the team. The first few weeks are going to be the guys transitioning from training and implementing what they’ve learnt into a game type situation. As well as building connections with players around the club and trying to instil that winning culture back at the football club.

Q5.  Has anyone surprised you this pre-season?

The great thing, especially from Colts level, is the standard of which the guys have come into the senior program. It has probably been far beyond what it has been in previous years, so you’ve got guys like Finn Gorringe, Keanu Haddow and Alex Crowe (I’m probably going to miss a few) who are coming from colts football, seeming like they’ve made that transition pretty well already.

I guess one of the big ones, that isn’t really a surprise, is Adam Sereda. He’s been a part of our senior program for a few years now, after initially being sent back to play amateur football. The form from him has been fantastic and he’s knocking on the door for a senior spot this year so he is probably one to watch out for.

Also, I guess the impact Harry Taylor has had, especially on our younger defenders. He has been fantastic so far and is going to be a great resource for the club moving forward.

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