A huge injury list and lack of depth exposed Endeavour Hills this season in Southern Division 2 football as they went 2-16 and were relegated to Division 3.
However, there is no shortage of positivity and excitement among the Falcons camp after the club backed in senior coach Matt Peake for his sixth year at the helm.
Peake coached the Falcons to a premiership back in 2023 and that is once again his task, as he aims to guide the side back into Division 2.
“I am pretty excited for next year and really happy that the club has trusted me with another year in terms of trying to bounce back and understanding where we are as a club,” he said.
“Because we are getting relegated and only won a couple of games, the club quite easily could’ve made a knee-jerk reaction I suppose, but I think they understood where we are at, and what we can hopefully do next year.”
While every club has injuries, Endeavour Hills faced too many to cover, resulting in many players having to come up from the reserves, sending a ripple effect through the club.
As a result of this, reserves coach Scot Anderson had a near-impossible job – sometimes struggling to fill the team, as his side also finished on the bottom of the ladder with a 1-17 record and some heavy defeats.
“We had about 12 senior players injured for most of the year and eight of them are arguably our best players,” Peake said.
“As much as you never want to use injuries as an excuse, it got to a critical point where there were just too many to cover.
“It is a shame that we are going down, because we want to be pushing forward and challenging in Division 2, but sometimes you just have to play the cards you are dealt.”
Before the injuries hit the Falcons, they started the season well with their two wins coming in the first three weeks and there was genuine optimism that their best footy was good enough to really challenge in Division 2.
You won’t often find a season where the team that gets relegated beats the team that gets promoted, but Endeavour Hills actually knocked off Hampton Park by seven points back in round four – one of the Falcons’ two wins for the entire year.
And it was against a team which dropped just four matches all year and won the grand final by almost 10 goals.
“It was all positive at the start of the year, we probably thought there was a bit of a lack of depth, but felt our best was good enough … that probably showed early,” Peake said.
“We had a couple of good wins, but the injuries came, and we couldn’t quite cover it with the depth that we had.”
Endeavour Hills won three premierships this season, so there was still plenty to be excited about despite the senior sides’ struggles.
And the many injuries that the side faced gave some younger players from the Under-19s the opportunity to stand up and get some valuable senior experience.
“Sometimes opportunity comes from those tough years, and otherwise we may not have uncovered a few gems … there is a lot of talent in the Under-19s, that’s for sure,” Peake said.
He added that the positive vibe around both senior groups, mixed with some recruits and plenty of hard work could be the perfect recipe for success.
“There is a lot of positivity about next year and what we can achieve, how we want to be stronger and how we can achieve that,” Peake said.
“That gives me a lot of confidence going into next year, and a lot of enthusiasm to get stuck into the work we need to do to be successful again.”
Endeavour Hills won’t be relying solely on players returning from injury, instead hoping to add recruits over the off-season and Peake at the right time next year.
