By Will Spence
After some nail-biting finishes across the first weekend of the 2022 season, there’s one game that has sparked the eyes of the EFNL community.
Fairpark have caused one of the major upsets to begin their campaign knocking off arch-rivals, Ferntree Gully by a single point over the weekend.
Fairpark Premiership Coach Sean Stanton was proud of the team’s effort but was adamant that they would not be getting carried away with the win.
“It was quite rewarding; a lot of hard work had gone in (over the pre-season),
“It is only one game, and when you have such a young list, you’re going to have weeks where you don’t perform to your absolute best, but our role as a coaching group is to make sure we can get them in as good a place as possible.”
Stanton was really impressed with the team’s fight in the last quarter when they got out to a four-goal lead and were able to hold on in thrilling fashion.
“I think we got it out to a four-goal lead at the 17–18-minute mark, and we knew they were going to respond, a combination of some of their good players really coming to the fore and trying to will them over the line got it to a point,
“But it was great to see the reward for effort.”
Stanton was immensely proud with the work of his midfield and the supply they provided the forwards.
““Some of our key personnel led well in our midfield, [Efstratios] Doulgeris, Ben McLeod, along with Jaydn Pridmore who is one of our recruits and Kyle Hird was enormous in the ruck.”
With a visibly different outfit from last year’s round one side, Stanton is brimming with confidence with the youth of his team and the number of debutants that played in round one.
“We had a different looking line-up, it was probably the youngest list that I’ve ever put on the park, and they stood up and played well on Saturday night,
“I was quietly confident and was probably the most nervous I had been before a game, since when we won the flag in 2019,
“I know that we were starting from a low base on what we achieved in 2021, but I was super confident that what I’d seen from recent weeks that we would be competitive.”
Stanton believes a win like this for his side will bring belief to Fairpark reserve, and more importantly, his younger players.
“For a lot of our young kids, I think it gave them a sense of belief that they’re able to play at this level, a lot of them hadn’t been exposed to senior football previously,
“So, if we stick to what we have been trying to implement for the last six months, and work hard, the results will take care of themselves.”