BFNL 2023: Lake Wendouree season previews

Welcome to The Courier's football and netball coverage for season 2023.

Here is the first of our Ballarat Football Netball League club season previews with Lake Wendouree.

Lakers footballers will be hoping to repeat last year's Good Friday clash in which they claimed their only win for 2022.

Both football and netball sides head to City Oval on Friday to take on Redan in the highly-anticipated season opener.

Improvement is the obvious answer for what second-year coach Jack Fitzpatrick will be wanting to see from his Lake Wendouree side in 2023, as the Lakers hope to avoid a second-consecutive wooden spoon finish in the Ballarat Football Netball League.

Fitzpatrick is the first to admit that 2022 was a tough year for his club, but the former AFL player appears confident that the young talent at the Lakers has matured over summer.

The Lakers averaged six under-19 players per game last season, with some lining up in every senior game.

FIXTURE ANALYSED: Which club has the hardest draw in 2023?

"There are a couple of those under-19s who you can already tell have come a long way over the off-season," Fitzpatrick said.

"Rory O'Keefe is a perfect example, he's training like he belongs now.

"I don't think he anticipated playing one senior game last year let alone all of them, but the confidence that he, along with many others, will take into this season will be incredibly valuable."

Much like how there are players throughout the squad who have come a long way in 12 months, Fitzpatrick, who has learnt from Mark Williams and Nathan Burke, feels more at home in his second year at the helm.

"There's no doubt I'm a better coach now than I was 12 months ago and I will be a better coach in 12 months time than I am now, that's just the way it works," he said.

"I'd like to think in terms of myself and my approach that I'm reasonably consistent in the way I go about it.

"I've learnt a lot from last year and hopefully, much like how we are looking for improvement from the players, I'll improve as well."

ON THE MOVE: Biggest BFNL recruits of the off-season

The Lakers youth still has a long way to go to catch up to those above them on the ladder.

A simple approach to this season will hopefully reward Fitzpatrick's men.

"It sounds cliché but if you look at our results from last year, we need to stop the opposition from scoring and we need to score more ourselves," he said.

"We were too easy to score against and we weren't able to kick enough goals which obviously makes winning games of footy pretty difficult."

Consistency has proven to be a strong focal point throughout pre-season, with lapses in concentration and momentum shifts leading to some heavy losses for the Lakers.

A loss to eventual runners-up Sebastopol in round 17 sprung to mind for Fitzpatrick, in which the Lakers led early in the third term before suffering a 46-point defeat.

"I could list a number of examples where we were competitive for majority of the contest, it was just brief periods in which we dropped away and conceded four or five consecutive goals."

"We just weren't able to stop the opposition from getting a run on us, if we can stop them scoring eight goals and instead maybe only allow two or three, we'll be in the game a lot more often."

Last year, the Lakers were forced to run Tom Hunt and Brayden Helyar through the ruck as their list struggled to secure height.

SWANSONG: Ballarat captain heads to Western Australia

As the 200-centimetre tall Fitzpatrick towered over his players at C.E. Brown Reserve, it appears the Lakers are set for more of the same in 2023.

Tom Zampatti looms an enticing recruit from St Joseph's, but the ruckman will be eased back into action as he recovers from a ruptured ACL.

Fitzpatrick said that any games the club can get out of Zampatti would be a bonus, given what he is coming back from.

It means the Lakers may once again look to last year's ruck heroes in Hunt and Helyar.

"There's no doubt that Tom would be able to ruck again, I'd be more than comfortable having him in there," Fitzpatrick said.

"If he does ruck again hopefully we have a bit more key-position depth so players like Tom and Brayden won't be missed as much if we throw them in the middle."

The focus is on the future for the Lakers in 2023, as they look to improve and build together this Ballarat Football Netball League season.

After sneaking into A Grade finals last year, Lake Wendouree is hoping to solidify itself as a finals contender in the 2023 Ballarat Football Netball League season.

Head coach Courtney McLean is back for her second year at the helm as the Lakers have enjoyed a "smoother" pre-season.

"We lost seven players at the start of last year so we had a completely new side in 2022," McLean said.

"It's really nice that we've been able to retain everybody because we should improve again.

"We have some really experienced players mixing with some young ones that are playing at a super high level."

Eloise Ritchie, Rosie Todd and Sadie Cheeseman return to the Lakers from Victoria Netball League duties ahead of the BFNL season.

McLean said the up-and-coming trio "definitely deserved" to play A Grade netball last year.

"We were concerned about how it (playing the juniors) would work out," she said.

"The girls who came up from juniors were outstanding and crucial for us in the end."

Cheeseman, who is only in year 12, is a talent McLean is eager to watch progress this year.

"She (Cheeseman) was our best player in round one and we just thought it was going to be silly not to have her on full time," McLean said.

"It was a bit difficult for her because she was still passionate about playing with the young girls but obviously wanted to do the best by her as well."

Cheeseman helped the Lakers finish fifth, but McLean believed her side was unlucky not to finish higher.

"We hoped we were going to play finals and we did," McLean said.

"I definitely think we were a bit unlucky with the draw in the end, instead of playing Sunbury and Melton twice we ended up playing the two grand finalists again."

Lake Wendouree ended up losing to eventual runners-up Darley in the first week of finals.

The Lakers' 2023 campaign begins on Good Friday against Redan at City Oval.

It was the Lions who got the better of Lake Wendouree in both encounters last season.

Have you signed up to The Courier's variety of news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in Ballarat.