Talented 47-man squad named by Great Southern Storm in preparation for annual Great Southern Colts Carnival

The Great Southern Storm have named their initial squad in preparation for the annual Great Southern Colts Carnival to be held in Lake Grace later this month. The Storm will represent the Great Southern Football League at the historic carnival on June 18 and 19. An initial colts squad of 47 players was announced this week by the Storm, with all six clubs represented. The group had their first training session on Tuesday night as they build towards the carnival, when they will come up against a host of strong regional teams. Great Southern Storm head coach Darrell Panizza said the squad selected was very talented but quite young and inexperienced. A strong portion of the squad are playing regular league football for their respective teams, and Panizza was bullish about what this group was capable of achieving at carnival level. “It’s a talented squad that just needs to get some experience, and obviously when you go away to these carnivals the opposition have big bodies and we always tend to struggle a little bit in the strength area, but the ability in this squad is quite exciting,” Panizza said. “We want to be very open-minded about who we take and what we’re taking. We’re lacking the 19-year-old players that are in the squad — not many clubs have that top-end age group. “We’re going to take away a relatively inexperienced young combination and the benefit of that is they’ll be able to go away for the next couple of years. “There will be three training sessions prior to the carnival. We’ve got an extended list. We’ll go through the process of picking the final squad.” Royals have the biggest representation with 11 players in the squad, while Railways have 10. Great Southern Storm colts squad Max Baker, Gus Bockman, George Bockman, Angus Bowles, Jack Day, Jake Shepherd, Connor McCandless (Albany), Todd Brown, Jed Cummuskey, Tait Hartfield, Jhett Morrison-Carter, Josh Thompson (Denmark- Walpole), Sebastian Ballard, Josh Davenport, Ben Kirkwood, Seth Jones, Alex Skinner (Mt Barker), Oliver Dall, Murray Hayward, Kiya Jelley, Kobi Keen, Hamish Medway, Lucas Ravenhill, Cooper Sandy, George Somerscales, Drew Willocks (North Albany), Lachlan Cale, Josh Duffield, Jarrad Fuller, Tom Gawned, Caleb Haua, Mohit Jaggi, Colby Law, Clay Michael, Ryley Valli, Isaac Williams (Railways), Ben Altus, William Cousins, Joley Graham, Saxon Henrickson, Jordan Hulm, Ryan Lazar, Justin Galos, Shane Lock, Rory Luscombe, Blake Panizza, Teague Valli (Royals)