Despite the slow start to the National Premier League season for West Canberra Wanderers, they still have belief in themselves to improve and set goals throughout the campaign.
In the past two seasons’ Wanderers have finished towards the bottom of the ladder, but they are preparing to change that this season.
Whilst the 2023 pre-season was something of a trial and error for the Wanderers, it has given them a chance to rebuild after a strong end to 2022 kept them in the division. Dom English, Wanderers Coach, has had nine years of Premier League experience giving Wanderers a new focus on development of their squad.
A good mixture of both home and away games has tested Wanderers and given them a chance to tackle some particularly good teams and geta grip on how the team can understand what the coaches are trying to implement.
“We can see that there’s a good level of skill to build from,” English said. “All we must do is put that into a structure that works. We feel like we’ve got a stronger deeper side in terms of football skills.”
“We’ve got a good bunch of guys with a really good heart of skill they just need to learn how to control games at this level.”
English revealed Wanderers really had to put effort into building a preferred system and playing style as a few changes to the squad have affected their pre-season. Having a good mixture of both home and away games during the pre-season has given the team a perspective of what’s to come on the 2023 NPL journey.
With a new team, including a few players coming up from the U23 side, the club culture is opening softly to create a great atmosphere at the Wanderers. Building upon their youth through their system gives young footballers a chance to excel in Canberra football.
“The boys obviously prefer to win, it’s better when you’ve got a few of those under your belt but there’s a strong sense that the boys are opening to learning and trying to be better players.” English said.
The start of the 2023 NPL season, has given Wanderers a chance to reflect on their performance and find ways to move forward. Keeping focus on what the players need to do to win games even when results aren’t going their way will help build a strong squad for the rest of the season.
English admits the squad needs to better benchmark their performance and be clear about how they build possession and manage their defensive system.
“The only way we go forward is together. Everybody’s got to go ‘What can I do to improve the club and our systems and our outcomes?’” English revealed.
“We will sit down with the boys and analyse the things that didn’t work in our matches and the things that are improving. We’ll keep setting goals for games where we can achieve those as technical progress regardless of the outcome.”
Wanderers progress on and off the field has had a challenging start. The new additions to the team have made it tricky to control games at this level, but despite this English believes the team is making satisfactory progress and its clear players are responding to their instructions, however there’s still a lot of work to do.
You can catch West Canberra Wanderers next game against Tuggeranong United at Wanderers Park, Melrose Synthetic, on Saturday 6 May at 14:00 or you can watch it live on Bartvsports.com.
Words: Shania McCormack
