Image: Smile for Peter
The 2016 season proved to be a rollercoaster season for Whittlesea Ranges, but as with all rollercoasters, what goes up must come down.
Having led the NPL2 West division for large chunks of the season, a late season fadeout saw the side fall out of title contention, before missing out on a top two spot altogether and subsequently missing the chance for promotion.
While the ending was a disappointment, not many would have picked Whittlesea as a promotion contender earlier on in the campaign given the club’s previous finishes in the league [lower end of the NPL1 and NPL2 West tables in 2014 and 2015 respectively].
Hence the overall view was that 2016 was filled with positive developments for the club as part of a three-year plan implemented at the beginning of the NPL era in 2014.
“Having a three year plan, the first year where we ended up – the second year we improved on, and the third year as you saw we just missed out on promotion and it was a massive improvement on that [second season] as well,” coach Vinko Buljubasic said.
“There have been massive improvements and we’ll look to continue on with that. Now we take it year by year.”
Yet with many good seasons in a second division, the top performers often get poached by top tier clubs or ambitious clubs in other divisions.
And so the West’s top scorer Atilla Ofli moved to Hume City, fellow attackers George Slefendorfas and Tedros Yabio to Geelong SC and Sunshine George Cross, Andrew Milicevic to Northcote City, Matt Cundari to St Albans Saints, Tobias Haegele to Altona City, while custodian Luke Gallo had also departed.
With voids left all over the park, there was plenty of work to do to replenish the squad’s stocks, with a big focus of early pre-season games and trials involving Buljubasic assessing and rebuilding the decimated squad for 2017.
In have come Ross Frame (Dandenong City), Phil Petrovski (Northcote City), Christopher Talajic (Melbourne Knights), Adam Centofanti and Jason Scerri (unattached), Matthew Conversano (Pascoe Vale) and Janiel Silva (Moreland United).
From there, the aim also moved toward being able to get the best out of the new players and formulating a system that suits the personnel at the club.
“It’s a work in work in pre-season, there are different players to try out, different systems, but the boys have been doing well,” he said.
“We’ve been giving youngsters a lot of opportunity to claim their case for being in the squad, but we’ve been missing six or so quality players coming into the side but that’s given the opportunity to younger players who have opened our eyes – we’re looking for other options and finding the right balance for the squad for the year.
“It is difficult but we’re just being patient at the moment. We believe the players replacing the ones that have left will do a good job.
“The Brazilian defender [Silva] hadn’t even trained with us but did well in a practice games. Our young striker [Matt Conversano] has done well and is a talent.”
The end of the initial three-year plan, along with the considerable turnover means there’s a big unknown for 2017 at Epping Stadium.
However, Buljubasic now in the fourth year of the NPL system is content that the expectations aren’t necessarily on achieving the promotion that eluded Whittlesea in 2016, but rather starting with a clean slate and seeing where the new year will take the club.
“It’s hard to predict at the moment until I settle on the squad and looking at the opposition in practice matches,” he said.
“Couple of weeks before the season begins I’ll assess where we should end up. Promotion is not a priority for us, we just want to get a competitive team out there and hope for the best.”