Pre-Season Update March 2022 by Football Manager Warren Parker

The 2022 WAFL Pre-Season continues to roll on and the East Perth Senior Squad are ramping up preparations for Pre-Season matches which are just around the corner.

After starting the training program back on the 15th of November, the hunger for competitive matches will soon be satisfied as we take on East Fremantle (A) on the 19th March, Swan Districts (A) on 26th March and close out Pre-season Matches against Peel Thunder (H) on 2nd April in preparation for Round 1 v Swan Districts on Easter Weekend.

In other news, the group took part in a Leadership Camp run by Leading Teams over the weekend of 19th February which was kindly hosted by Newman College. Leading Teams have come on board with the club in 2022 and will assist us in the long-term development of leaders within the group as well as building on our foundation of standards and behaviours which will help propel the group forward in the years to come. 

Leading Teams most famously helped Sydney develop the “Bloods’ culture. They are currently working with Port Adelaide and Brisbane and have been used, at one point or another by, 16 of the 18 AFL Clubs.

We have a lot of eager, dedicated, young players here at the club and the addition of Leading Teams will certainly assist them in building the culture required to contend for premierships.

New Strength and Conditioning Coach Sean Connolly has been working the boys extremely hard in the Gym and on the track with a large number of players covering over 30kms per week over their 3 dedicated football sessions.

This includes new recruit Hamish Brayshaw who has been very impressive in juggling his AFLW coaching commitments with West Coast and is putting together a very solid preseason along with a host of others, all pushing their claim for a Round 1 spot.

Although the pre-season has been a strong one for the club, we have certainly been facing challenges of late with Covid now becoming a part of day-to -day life as it is for all West Australians.

Players, coaches and support staff are following all of the WA Government Protocols to limit the risk of contracting and/or spreading the virus in the community and the club has taken on a vast array of protocols and testing procedures to ensure that the risk of spread at the club stays low.

This includes Rapid Antigen Testing for select groups of at risk players pre-training and an in-depth tracing system which allows us to track various Close Contacts, PCR Testing Results and Covid Positive Cases within the playing group.

A number of our group have contracted Covid and I’m happy to say that their symptoms have been relatively mild and they are all healthy. We know that our community is also dealing with Covid and we hope that everyone stays healthy.

We’ll continue to manage this situation as best we can from a club point of view and stay hopeful that Covid will not negatively impact the season, our group and our on-field results as we strive for a Finals Birth in 2022.

Keep your eyes out for further season announcements by the club, but we are all looking forward to kicking off the 2022 campaign and can’t wait to see our Loyal Royals back at the footy very soon!