Claremont to support Great Southern colts

A host of Great Southern players trying their luck with Claremont’s colts team this season have been dealt a frustrating blow with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic stalling the WAFL season.

Poch Amores (Royals), Brock Anning (Albany), Jacob Blight (Railways), Jye Clark (Railways), Anthony Davis (Borden), Kieran Gowdie (Albany), Arthur Jones (Mt Barker), Kalin Lane (Denmark-Walpole) and Alex Pearce (North Albany) all made the final squad announced prior to the virus derailing the WAFL season while Dane Paunich (Royals) was a train-on player with the club.

Talon Delacey (North Albany), Darcy Wallinger (Mt Barker) and Heath Spinks (North Albany) also did part of the pre-season as regionally based players Claremont are hoping to engage moving forward.

The Great Southern players along with the rest of the colts squad have training programs to complete while restrictions on training and playing are in place.

Claremont acting talent manager Jordan Smith said the football club would continue to help out the country players.

“These guys have clearly made some significant sacrifices to relocate to Perth to pursue their footy this year, so the current situation is obviously a real frustration for them,” Smith said.

“We’ll ensure we support them as best as we can throughout this period, and look forward to hopefully being able to get everyone back to training as soon as it’s safe to do so.

“Some of the boys have moved up to Perth with family on a more or less permanent basis, but we’ve encouraged those not in that category to head home, so we’ve ended up with about half the Great Southern boys taking up that option.

“The beauty of modern times is that we’ve been able to stay well connected with all the boys throughout this period, so while a few of them are 400-odd kilometres away, we’re still in touch regularly and I know they’ve all been working hard on their training programs up to this point.”