Ahead of their opening round Good Friday clash with Thomastown this week, Epping senior men’s recruit Luke Lirosi explains how the club’s focus in 2023 will be on building morale and chemistry within the group.
A 2012 premiership player with the Blues, Lirosi will look to add to the 114 senior games he played at the club between 2007 and 2013.
The 33-year-old returns to the Blues after nine years at West Preston-Lakeside, where he was a member of the Roosters’ 2018 and 2019 premiership sides and also claimed the best on ground medal in the 2019 decider.
Lirosi explained how he felt the timing was right to get back to playing a lower grade of football as he approaches the twilight of his career.
“It was a bit of everything (the decision to come back to Epping), it was a bit of family and a bit about the commitment to footy. Division 1 is getting really quick with a lot of young players coming through, and I thought it would be time to go back to Epping,” he said.
Lirosi has been the headline recruit for Epping this off-season, alongside Southern Power (AFL Sydney) product Jackson Bailey and Panton Hill player Ethan Gorski. However, the Blues have had to deal with the departures of much of their 2022 side in the same period.
Those players include the likes of Damon Marcon, James Tadd, Adrian Cirianni, Jaedyn Kearney and Jackson Freebairn who all featured prominently in the senior side last year.
They head into this year’s campaign after a two-win season in 2022, with the margins of 11 of their 16 defeats being by 100 or more points, conceding the most points of any side in the competition.
But part of Lirosi’s motivation to return to the Blues was to help get the club back to winning ways, saying that with a fairly new playing group to work with, Epping can almost start fresh again while still hoping to remain in MC Labour Division 2 by season’s end.
“They’ve struggled the last couple of years and have stayed around the bottom, but we’ve got basically a new playing group and we’re just going to build a new foundation up,” he said.
“It might take a couple of years, but the idea is to win a lot more games than last year and get out of that relegation zone.
“The quicker the playing group gels, the quicker the results will start coming.”
Ahead of their match up with Thomastown on Friday, the Blues will hope to put up a more competitive than their 99-point loss to the Bears on Good Friday last year.
Lirosi highlighted the almost complete change in sides from that 2022 clash, adding that a strong pre-season will compliment what they ultimately want to get out of the opening round battle on Friday.
“I reckon 12 months ago was a long time ago, I’d probably say there’s about a handful players that were in that team last year that are playing this year,” he said.
“We haven’t really planned to attack Thomastown in a certain way, we’re more worried about what we’re going to do structure wise.
“We’ve had a couple of practice matches which we’ve won and we’ve good numbers on the track too, so we’re happy with the lead up.”
