Vitale Ferrante to resume Essendon Royals senior men’s duties in 2022
Vitale Ferrante will resume duties as Essendon Royals senior men’s coach in 2022.
The Royals are delighted to welcome Ferrante back for his “third” season at the club, having been appointed ahead of the 2020 campaign.
Thus far, Ferrante’s reign has been severely interrupted by COVID19, with the 2020 season cancelled after just one FFA Cup game and the 2021 season cancelled after 14 rounds.
Whilst the 2021 season was lost at a crucial stage of the year, Ferrante said his first coaching experience in State League 1 provided plenty of learning opportunities for him and his team.
“I came into it expecting it to be tough, and what we saw and experienced just confirmed that it’s one of the toughest leagues in the state,” he said.
“You have to be prepared for a whole range of challenges week-to-week that are very unique to each other.
“You’ve got a large collection of teams that are desperate to get out of the league, playing a very tough, physical brand of football on a wide range of facilities, from tight, small grounds to bigger grounds.
“So every week is a challenge and whilst we knew it would be tough, 2021 showed just how tough this competition is.”
Ferrante said the learnings from 2021 would help inform his plan of attack for 2022, but admitted the biggest challenge for all clubs will once again be being able to keep players fit and healthy in a part-time setting after such large amounts of interruptions.
“We were a bit unfortunate at the start of this season with a few key injuries that turned into long-term setbacks,” he said.
“I really had to shuffle the pack over the first nine weeks.
“And when we did hit our straps, we would be interrupted by lockdowns. The first lockdown we went into on the back of three or four big wins, had our best squad available a chance to go top the next week.
“We just never got the chance to get that consistency.”
Despite the interruptions, Ferrante is eager to get back to work with the Royals and continue the work he has started and was looking forward to taking on the challenges that 2022 will present.
“I think the psychology of the league and the players will be very interesting,” he said.
“We’ve basically done five pre-seasons in the space of 16 months. It takes a toll.
“Even when you’re playing the season, it’s in the back of your mind that there could be a lockdown, so it’s important for us to see the players that come back with that real sense of reinvigoration and hungry to make up for lost time.
“We also need to think about how we manage the team physically. There were a number of clubs affected by that last year and we were one of them, so injury prevention and physical conditioning is going to be prevalent again this year.”