Dominant Lions focus on start to new season in finalsWednesday, September 9, 2015 - 2:34 PM - by Chris Pike

SUBIACO'S advantage for a dominant 2015 WAFL season is now over following the break in the first week of the finals and premiership player and coach Jarrad Schofield has plenty of selection decisions to make with the Lions league and reserves both in second semi-finals this Sunday.

Coming off winning last year's premiership in his second year as coach, the triple WAFL premiership player, and AFL premiership winner has guided Subiaco to a dominant season ending up as minor premiers four games clear to earn the break in the first week of the finals.

That gave the Lions the chance to watch West Perth and Peel Thunder do battle for the right to play them in a second semi-final this Sunday, and it was the Falcons who advanced with a 109-point win with the two teams to now clash at Medibank Stadium with a grand final berth at stake.

While Subiaco won 17 games this season to be four games clear as minor premiers, it wasn’t a season without injury concerns and again plenty of young players receiving opportunities.

Matt Boland, Rhys Waters, Scott Worthington, Kyal Horsley, Sam Menegola, Chris Deluca, Lachlan Delahunty, Wayde Twomey, Brett Mahoney, Darren Rumble and Reece Blechynden have all battled injuries of varying degrees in 2015.

Young players Braden Fimmano, Greg Clark, Chris Bryan, Jordan Bestry, James Garcia, Declan Jackson, Craig Hoskins and Hayden Kennedy have received opportunities as a result, but now Schofield has room for just 22 players against West Perth on Sunday.

With Subiaco's league and reserves teams both making the grand finals in 2014, and now each being in second semi-finals this Sunday at Medibank Stadium, depth is one of the Lions' great strengths.

Highlighting that is the fact that premiership players from last year Joel Latham, Charles Le Fanu, Waters and Worthington all played in last Sunday's reserves qualifying win over Swan Districts.

However, most of Subiaco's injury problems have now been overcome giving Schofield a virtual full list to pick from for this Sunday's second semi-final, but he knows that they virtually enter on level footing now that their advantage for winning the minor premiership is behind them.

"All we did was earn the right to have a week off and that was well-deserved on that part so as a club it was a fantastic effort to get the minor premiership and to have the week off, but we understand that one season is finished and one season begins," Schofield said.

"Now everyone is on a level playing field. The only advantage we've got is having the week off so we made sure we recovered well, watched West Perth and Peel on the weekend and got ourselves prepared to play the winner."

Subiaco won the 2014 premiership and then went on to lose Simpson Medallist Jason Bristow along with George Hampson, Shaun Hildebrandt, Andrew McDougall, Daniel Leishman and Josh Deluca with Brad Stevenson and Frank Stockley going down with season-ending knee injuries.

The 17-3 record suggests Subiaco has got even stronger in 2015 and that's certainly been helped with the recruitment of Sam Menegola, Scott Hancock, Brett Robinson and Leigh Kitchin with Michael Wood also returning from Fremantle.

But Schofield feels just as important is the pressure that Subiaco's young players continue to put on the regulars in the league side and that is why he remains excited by the future at the Lions no matter what the future holds for veterans like five-time premiership full-back Rumble.

"We've had 18 fresh faces come into our squad this year so that's just under half a squad, so we've had to put our younger players trough a development phase of understanding our style of play, understanding the expectations that we put on our players and we'll be no different again at the end of this year," Schofield said.

"We'll have up to half a dozen guys who could retire or move on so we have to make sure that we definitely develop our local zone and look to other clubs for players that aren’t getting opportunities. For us our points system has been well documented so it's more important now so that we actually get it right and develop our young guys.

"We've had six debutants last year and that's less than the last couple of years, but it's hard when you have a defending premiership side playing strong football to break into that team.

"In saying that, we've had guys who have played from eight to 14 games this year who will be better for it next year with our senior football. Development is a massive thing and we have to make sure that we keep our list nice and strong moving forward."