By Alex Karavas
WRFL Senior interleague coach Brett Jacobs won’t be hanging up the whistle just yet, after being selected as an assistant coach in the Vic Metro Representative Squad next month.
In a major coup for the league, Jacobs will assist Western Bulldogs legend Brian Royal, who led last year’s Vic Metro squad to victory over the WorkSafe AFL Vic Country side by 38-points.
“I’m obviously very humbled and very honoured to be involved and just having the opportunity come up, it was just too good to pass up,” Jacobs said.
Along with fellow assistant coaches Sean Millane and Northern Football League representative coach, Jason Heatley, Jacobs will head to Queensland over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend where Vic Metro will play a representative squad from AFL Queensland on June 7.
Despite the WRFL going down to the Eastern Football League by 34-points in this year’s AFL Vic Metro Championships, nine WRFL players have been selected in the initial 42-man squad.
Deer Park has the most representatives with Kwame McHarg, Jackson Purton-Smith, Tim Quick and Rhett King asked to train with the squad that started training this week.
Five other Division One clubs also have representatives selected, with tall man Jayden Post (Altona), Murray Boyd (Spotswood), Wayde Skipper (Hoppers Crossing), Andrew Panayi (Werribee Districts) and captain Tim Jenkins (St.Albans) selected.
“From memory I think seven out of the nine have got back to AFL Victoria expressing their interest, which is fantastic,” Jacobs said.
“In terms of picking the final squad, we haven’t gone down that road yet.
“We’ll probably announce the final squad a week before the game, but for now we’re just taking it one training session at a time.
“Once the squad is picked and we start getting into the more technical stuff of how we want the squad to play and defend those sort of expectations will start coming into it.”
Traditionally battling it out with the best players from the AFL Vic Country team, Jacobs said it will be interesting to test the Metro squad’s skills against the top talent in Queensland.
“It’s difficult not knowing too much about them obviously them playing interstate, but that’s the challenge… we’ll need to be switched on come game day.”
Getting a group together like this can be a major challenge in itself. You are bringing together players from all six Melbourne metropolitan leagues, something which Jacobs says will require a lot of focus on team bonding.
“I think the challenge is going to be getting players together that aren’t familiar with each other, so team bonding and getting the team playing together as a group is probably the greatest challenge.
“If we can overcome that hurdle and get the boys familiar with one another, then we feel we will have a very talented squad and do quite well.”
Steve Teakel of AFL Victoria’s Coaching and Umpiring Development Manager said that the squad will be required to attend up to four training sessions before the big match.
“The squad will be training at Box Hill City Oval on the next two Wednesday nights, then at Ikon Park for the last week.”
The final squad will be cut to a 24-man team on June 2 with the squad flying out on the morning of June 6, before the main match on Sunday June 7. Good luck to all players involved.
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Last Modified on 28/05/2015 10:13