FARRER FILES: NORTHERN JETS
2015 Finish: 7th
Home & Away: 8 wins; 8 losses
Club Best & Fairest: Sam Fisher
Rising Star: Patrick Bray
Snapshot:
The Jets made significant improvement on 2014 but didn’t find the consistency to look like serious contenders and in the end fell short of the finals. They did give it a shake right at the eleventh hour when a big win over Barellan in the final round had them within kicking distance of overtaking Marrar… until the Blues charged home at Coleambally against Temora to overtake them both and nab fifth spot.
One of three teams to finish the season 8-and-8, the Jets have their sights set on making a play for the top three next year after finding a ruckman out of Victoria and three very handy recruits from Canberra via the Hume League, who will provide a touch of class around the ground.
Sam Fisher steps up to share the coaching responsibilities with Darren Jackson, and the club is hopeful that the lessons of this year and the extra depth provided by four new faces and graduates from the successful under 17s premiers, will ensure they’re capable of challenging the top sides week-in week-out.
Highlights:
Sam Fisher and Declan O’Rourke were the club’s two most consistent performers, with Fisher best and fairest by a couple of votes, while Chris Bell wasn’t far away in third.
If that was a win for experience, then the club’s under 17s premiership was a big tick for future prospects heading into 2016.
And it was youth that impressed Fisher in his return home as assistant coach.
“Just the commitment of the young fellas,” Fisher said of his highlight for 2015.
“At the start of the year we got hit hard by injuries and they stepped up, they kept putting their hands up and kept us in with a chance of making finals.”
When Jackson looks back on his first year at the helm of the Jets, it’s the overall improvement year on year that stands out.
“We won half our games and I was quite happy with that, it’s just a shame we had those injuries early,” Jackson said.
“There were only two sides we didn’t beat (grand finalists The Rock-Yerong Creek and East Wagga-Kooringal) and we probably could’ve beaten East Wagga at Ardlethan. We were in front and we lost Fish and Andrew Bonny.”
They showed some resilience too, including not turning up their tails towards the end of the year after being thrashed by the Hawks. The Jets recovered a week later to beat finals-bound North Wagga – the win at McPherson Oval breathing some life back into their slim finals chances and restoring some credibility.
Lowlights:
The failure to play finals was the obvious disappointment for the Jets, along with all the reasons that contributed to that.
Even now at the end of the season, it’s hard not to look back and wonder what might have been when it’s only percentage that separates you from fifth.
“It’s just a shame we missed out because I reckon we could’ve won one or two finals,” Jackson said adding that it’s not about the record books showing they finished seventh, but a missed opportunity to get some finals experience into his team.
Fisher said the start of the season still plays on his mind, when they lost three of their first four games, but managed to beat Temora.
“Our first game of the year, against Marrar, we led all game then let them back in in that last quarter,” Fisher said.
“That game probably cost us our season – we just didn’t come prepared.”
Beaten by TRYC in round two, the Jets bounced back against the Kangaroos before going down at home to Coleambally – by eight goals. By the time the reverse fixture rolled around, they got revenge at Coly – one of five wins in an improved back half of the season.
But the back end of the year wasn’t perfect either, with the Jets getting a lesson in how far off the mark they might be when thumped by a red-hot EWK on August 1. In what was perhaps the Hawks’ peak few weeks, the Jets just couldn’t get their share of the ball at Robertson Oval and were blitzed as a result.
Surprise Packet:
The Jets had plenty of solid contributors, led by Fisher who delivered to expectations; and O’Rourke was impressive, named in their best nine times and particularly strong in their last half-dozen games.
Other names too spring to mind as Jackson casts his mind back over the year, including Bell, Mitch Robinson and Mick Foster.
But young ruckman Aiden Cattle was a key improver.
“He was very good, he had a very good year,” Jackson said.
“He didn’t really surprise me, I thought he’d be good but he stood up for us very well for a young kid.”
Areas to improve:
When Fisher says he looks back on the early part of the year with regret about what some closes losses might have cost them later, he knows what they’ll focus on in his first season as co-coach.
“We weren’t fit enough and we’re going to work on that this year. And our ball usage up and down the ground but it comes back to fitness – if you’re not fit enough your ball use gets sloppy,” Fisher said.
When he accepted the job, Fisher told The Daily Advertiser he was hoping to bring some of Mark Kruger’s coaching philosophy to the job, including injecting plenty of run.
Jackson agrees his players need to be fitter, saying he was generally happy with the way the Jets finished the season.
“We’re getting better and hopefully we can build on it next year – we just need to get a bit fitter and change a few things – get our tackling a bit better to get up to the top sides.”
Although Cattle gave Jackson some flexibility to throw Andrew Bonny forward, the Jets coach – right from when he took on the job – was always worried about a lack of goal-kicking options apart from Mick Foster.
“You need forwards – we’re trying to get a running game going but there’s only one way to win games and that’s to kick goals,” Jackson said.
“I’m a bit biased because I was a forward myself but you’ve got to kick goals if you want to win.”
Finding a forward and picking up a versatile tall who could play in the ruck were the two key roles the Jets’ recruiting committee set out to fill for next year, and they came up trumps – with those two and more.
“We’ve had a couple of successful weeks,” Fisher said, when confirming ruckman Josh Plozza had joined from Mallee League club Walpeup-Underbool, and a forward, Tim Gray, was among the three recruits originally from Canberra club Eastlake, who come via a couple of seasons with Hume League club Rand-Walbundrie.
Justin Mesman and Mark Kimball are the other two who will commute from Canberra, and inject some quality at the Jets.
Mesman is a centre-half-back who has won best-and-fairests at Eastlake and Rand-Walbundrie, while Kimball was the Tigers’ best in the trio’s first year at the Hume League club, in 2014.
What to look forward to:
Announcement of the four recruits has livened up the off-season around Ariah Park, Mirrool and Ardlethan.
“They’ll bring that bit of experience that we need,” Fisher said.
“There’s a fair bit of excitement around.”
Plozza – a contender in the Mallee League medal count last year – means the Jets have that tall, versatile ruckman who can play forward. And his arrival in the town, already, is a big result in an era when travelling recruits are becoming the norm.
Fisher said he’s an accomplished footballer who, at 24, will fit in well at the Jets and with a full pre-season they’re expecting big things from the new big man.
Kimball, Mesman and Gray come well-credentialed and will help Fisher and Jackson roll out the running game they’re working towards. Kimball in the middle will also ease the pressure on the co-coach.
But as a local back at his home club, Fisher is just as excited about what the future holds in terms of emerging first graders, including the exciting Jerry Lucas when he isn’t tied up on rep football.
“Stepping up to the coaching role, it’s going to be something different, but I’m looking forward to it, and to working with all these young fellas after they won the (under 17s) flag.
“There’s five or six who will be too old for 17s, so they’ll be stepping up to play senior footy and hopefully we can get them up and make the most of their run.”
One who isn’t yet out of the junior grade but is every chance of being seen in the seniors is Chris Ryall, who won the David “Sandman” Oehm league medal by a country mile. He had 23 votes after nine games, and finished the year with 34 votes – double his nearest rival in the 17s.
“He’s an absolute freak, hopefully this year we’ll blood him into a few first grade games,” Fisher said.
