Falcons focus within for improvement in 2016Thursday, March 10, 2016 - 12:13 AM - by Chris Pike

BEING content with second place is not something anyone is saying at West Perth coming into the 2016 WAFL season with coach Bill Monaghan hopeful a couple of additions and the overall hunger of the playing group can lead to further improvement.

The Falcons had a strong 2015 finishing the home and away season in second position before going on to beat Peel Thunder and East Perth in finals matches at HBF Arena, but losing in the second semi-final and grand final to Subiaco.

West Perth has kept the majority of that squad together for 2016 with Marcus Adams the most significant loss from the grand final team, but Max Duffy's arrival after being delisted by Fremantle provides some added attacking flair.

The Falcons appear to have natural improvement in their squad as well with the likes of Seva Mozhaev (Martin), Max Alexander, Tyler Keitel, Shayne Zanetti and Mark Hamilton capable of making their mark after missing some or all of 2015 through a variety of seasons.

Monaghan is West Perth's longest serving coach in history and was the 2013 premiership mentor, but just feeling like they have a squad capable of being a contender isn’t going to be enough in 2016.

He is fully aware that the group must have the hunger and desire to improve and to do the work required.

"Confident, comfortable and all those words don’t sit well with me because it's only your actions in games that count. The players' mindset and their drive and want to improve is what matters," Monaghan said.

"All I know is that if we don’t improve on last year we will go backwards and our plan is not to go backwards or to tread water. Individually, collectively, as a coaching staff and a whole football club we are trying to find ways to be better because looking back grand final day was a pretty ordinary performance.

"Whether there were reasons, excuses or mitigating circumstances, the fact was we were 11 goals behind the best side in the competition and that's unacceptable for us. The players are out to rectify that and we've been searching for ways to improve and we think that at this stage we are implementing ways to do that in our training. But until we play it's really hard to judge that."

Replacing Adams from the West Perth defence won't be an easy task particularly on the back of the retirements of Dan Hunt and Michael Pettigrew in 2014.

But Monaghan is confident West Perth will have greater depth in their big men department in 2016 with Joe Morrow, Drew Rohde and Sam Rotham capable of continued improvement.

Keitel is set to be even better after a full pre-season while Alexander, Zanetti and Mozhaev are virtual new recruits after managing two games between the three of them in 2015.

Then with Nick Rodda capable of playing at either end, Michael Lourey set to again be the spearhead in attack and Hamilton to get a chance when he earns it, Monaghan is at least happy with the big men depth on paper coming into 2016.

"We don’t have a direct like for like swap for Marcus, but I don’t think anyone in the WAFL would. But Keitel came off no pre-season last year and was only 19 going on 20, so he'll keep improving," he said.

"Joe Morrow got some continuity with games and training last year after a couple of years in the wilderness, Drew Rohde clearly improved, Sam Rotham played early in the season and that was exciting.

"Ben King is back at the footy club after playing some really good footy in 2014. He took last year off to do a bit of a work and he got going on building and establishing a house, but he's back and we think that will be good. Max Alexander played the first two league games and he ended up playing some reserves towards the end, but he hobbled through and wasn’t really right.

"The other one that has been really good at training is Mark Hamilton. He came down last year on recommendation from Michael Pettigrew who played with him in the Northern Territory. We think as a big bodied player who is mature as a 25-year-old and athletically he's extremely well put together so we think there is plenty there.

"And Nick Rodda is still only 21 years of age, Mike Lourey will be better this year and then we have Seva Martin, who has changed his name to Seva Mozhaev. He was actually probably ready to play on the eve of finals last year but we made a decision at club level, probably to his disgust, that it wasn’t worth the risk to get him to play two or three games in the reserves.

"He's had another whole pre-season to get himself ready and whether he plays forward or in the ruck, that's another tall that we've got and we are still hopeful that Shayne Zanetti's body will eventually get right and at 199cm he has good pace and strength, so if we get him on the track we think we have enough talls to be competitive."

While recruiting wasn’t a major focus for West Perth given the natural depth in the squad, adding in some quality with players who can make an impact with their skill and creativity is always welcome.

That's exactly where Duffy (formerly East Fremantle, Fremantle and Peel), Joel Leeson (ex-Perth) and Keegan Knott (previously Claremont) fit in at the Falcons.

"We were trying to find ways of scoring more and Max has natural ability to find the ball and to do things with the ball in the front half that a lot of players can't do. We are going to give him the licence to try and score, and create scoring opportunities," Monaghan said.

"We have also added Joel Leeson from Perth and between the two of them they have played 100 WAFL games and we think that will add to a good band of small to mid-forwards that we've got.

"We might also be able to release a (Steve) Potente, (Luke) Meadows or (Kody) Manning further up the ground as well as so we are really looking forward to having Max and Joel at the club. Hopefully that will create a few more goals."