Host of Great Southern Football League youngsters join Claremont Football Club’s pre-season training

A strong contingent of 12 Great Southern Football League young guns were invited to train with the Claremont Football Club as part of the colts pre-season program earlier this year. Seven players have relocated to Perth for the full colts pre-season which runs from January to early April while five additional youngsters travelled up to Perth for blocks of training throughout January. Sebastian Ballard (Mt Barker), Todd Brown (Denmark-Walpole), Saxon Henrickson (Royals), Mohit Jaggi (Railways), Ryan Lazar (Royals), Josh Thompson (Denmark-Walpole) and Ryley Valli (Railways) will train with the Tigers in the hope of earning a permanent spot on the colts list. Albany-based players George Bockman (Albany), Lachlan Cale (Railways), Rory Luscombe (Royals), Clay Michael (Railways) and Lucas Ravenhill (North Albany) joined the group intermittently throughout pre-season. Tigers talent manager Jordan Smith said the contingent of Great Southern players were tracking well. “They’re all integrating into the group really well, it’s obviously a big step-up in the training load and the training standard which is why we’re so lucky to have the Great Southern Storm down in Albany that provides the stepping stone for the boys,” he said. “It’s still early days, it’s only been about three-and-a-half weeks so we’re just starting to get them into some match-type stuff over the next few weeks. “That will give us a bit more of an idea about where things sit. “That lump of January is pretty heavy on just skill and conditioning so through February all the way through to the start of the season in April we’ll start to build in our practice games. “It’s always good to see the boys in a match environment, you tend to learn a fair bit more about them when you watch them in a game as opposed to training so we’re looking forward to it.” Smith said a strong precedent of successful Great Southern football talent allows the players to envisage a pathway for a spot on the Tigers senior list. “The fact that so many have come before them as well, there’s a lot of Great Southern boys in the senior group at the moment,” he said. “Having them blazed the trail in previous years really provides a good example for the group that comes up each year about where things could lead if they keep working hard. “The extra familiarity of having some of the other boys come up for blocks of training, the more the merrier. It’s always great to have so many Great Southern boys up with us.” In addition to the colts program, the Tigers also ran a futures program for the 16s group with 11 Great Southern players taking part in training during January. Charlie Anning (Albany), Aiden Clark (Albany), Kaleb Germain (Albany), Max Grimes (Albany), Fynn Kelleher-Bird (North Albany), Brock Lathbury (Railways), Jesse Owens (Albany), Mitchell Paine (Royals), Blake Panizza (Royals), Hunter Porteous (Railways) and Declan Reid (Albany) were all included in the pre-season initiative.