East Fremantle Head to Melbourne on Alumni Trip

CEO, Todd Shimmon, and myself headed to Melbourne last week for four days for some professional development opportunities with AFL clubs and to meet a number of our AFL stars based in Victoria. 

After arriving in Melbourne late on Wednesday night we headed down the highway to Geelong, where we had breakfast with Harry Taylor and Jarrad Jansen.  It was fantastic to sit with those two boys, both at opposite ends of the spectrum when you look at their experience, to chat about all things football and life in a football mad city like Geelong.  Taylor, who hails from our Midwest region, has played in excess of 160 AFL games and is part of the Cat’s leadership group.  Jarrad was drafted to the Cats in the 2013 and whilst he is yet to make his senior debut, recent good form has him on that cusp.

Following breakfast Todd and I had the pleasure of meeting with Troy Selwood who took us around the facility of Simonds Stadium.  Over the next two hours we spoke about leadership, post-game recovery methods, KPI’s that drive performance and generally anything in terms of best practice and what has made the Cats such a strong club over the past decade.

As it turned out, given it was a bye for the Sharks, a number of other East Fremantle staff, officials and players were also in Melbourne.  From Geelong we headed back up the highway to Melbourne to meet with Neil Balme, Football Director of the Collingwood Football Club.  Kim Chatfield, one of our Club Directors, met us at the Westpac Centre, just across the road from the “G”.  Just like our professional development session with Troy, we met with Neil, who has a long and distinguished history in football, for a couple of hours.  Again we covered similar topics as those discussed at the Cattery.  The Westpac Centre is an amazing complex and the resources and money that is available and injected  in to AFL football is unbelievable.

Thursday night we headed to the infamous restaurant strip that is Lygon Street.  Mark Stewart, President of our Club, joined us for dinner with four of our AFL stars based in Melbourne, including Rising Star favourite Patrick Cripps from Carlton, Jason Johannisen from the Western Bulldogs, Jonathon Marsh form the Pies and last year’s AFL team of the year and Essendon leadership group member Cale Hooker.  Unfortunately Andrew Swallow and Alex Fasolo were unable to attend.  Again, like the boys from Geelong, we presented the boys with a Sharks hoodie.  It was great to just sit and chat with the boys at Doninni’s restaurant (highly recommend if in Melbourne).

Friday Todd, Kim and myself headed to Ikon Stadium, home of the Carlton Blues.  We met with one of their full time recruiting staff in Michael Jordan (no not the great Chicago Bulls basketball player) who also took us around the facility.  The Blues were very open to discuss some ideas on list management as well the other three key learning areas we had taken from the two other clubs.  They also kindly provided us with tickets to their game that Friday night, but probably the less said about that the better after the Hawks gave them a bit of a hiding.

Saturday was all about the VFL, where Todd and myself, along with two of our leadership group, met with two players that we have been tracking in the VFL for breakfast in Newport.  I’m pretty sure it is the coldest Todd has ever been.  Following on from that we headed off to VFL match between Port Melbourne and Williamstown, two sides that have been very successful over the past number of years and who had a few other players we have been looking at. 

The few day was a fantastic experience to not only catch up with our AFL boys based in Melbourne but to gain insight as to some best practice methods that both AFL and VFL clubs use, some of which no doubt can and will be implemented back at our Sharks.  With a strong list of Colts coming through our system and heading in to senior football and a few recruits to bolster stocks for 2016, along with some of these implementations we can look forward with enthusiasm.

Darryn Fry

Football Manager.