By Ben Pollard
“Talent will take you to the door; it’s your attitude that will get you through it.”
As the Dragons’ 2013 season was launched at Trevor Barker Beach Oval on Wednesday night, there was one philosophy every guest speaker put forward to this year’s playing group: Your attitude to hard work means everything.
While head coach Justin Plapp spoke about this year’s playing group being one of the most deeply talented lists Sandringham has had, he cautioned that it wouldn’t guarantee success.
To improve on the team’s heartbreaking four-point loss in last year’s TAC Cup preliminary final, Plapp said every player needed to put in the hard yards.
And so far in 2013, the signs are good. Testing results have been on target and two practice match wins against Gippsland and Dandenong were encouraging.
But, as newly announced Dragons co-captains Tom Langdon and Max Hayes told the audience of 180, the real stuff is still to come.
“It’s just the start, boys... A lot of people say we’ve got a talented squad this year – that it’s very deep – but as I see it, it’s just names on lists until we start performing,” 19-year-old Langdon said.
“You just need to work really hard and I think if we do that then hopefully we’ll be able to do better than last year and get the premiership,” Hayes added.
Joining Langdon and Hayes in the 2013 leadership group are Julian Eimutis, Haydon Whitehead, Christian Salem, Joshua Kelly, Elliot Le Grice and Nathan Freeman.
Head coach Plapp said the new captains and leadership group would lead from the front with their approach to hard work.
“They’re going to echo and drive these beliefs that we’re (the coaching staff) about,” he said.
Last year’s captain Chris Mangoni and teammate Kenny Ong spoke about needing to establish trust that every team member will give 100 per cent on and off the field.
It’s a philosophy Mangoni has used to overcome the disappointment of missing out on AFL draft day and be picked up by Collingwood’s VFL squad.
“Being smaller and skinnier, you’ve just got to have a crack and leave no regrets, because I don’t want to get to 30 and think ‘I should have had a crack’,” he said.
2011 Dragons premiership players Jackson Paine (now at Collingwood in the AFL) and Ben Darrou (on Richmond’s rookie list) also spoke of the valuable lessons to be learnt in the TAC Cup program.
“You can’t take anything for granted,” Paine said. “I didn’t just apply that to footy, it really started to re-shape how I looked at my life as a whole – that’s really helped me transitioning into the AFL environment.”
Paine has needed that lesson too. Last October, he underwent a shoulder reconstruction after playing six games in his first season with the Magpies. Soon after, a related infection kept him hospitalised for two weeks.
The key forward has now recovered and has put the disappointment of missing out on a big pre-season behind him.
Like Paine, Ben Darrou has also had to overcome health hurdles. The big defender was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as a 10 year old, but has found a way to manage in elite football environments.
“I never really wanted it to affect my footy,” he said. “I guess in the end it helped me to learn organisation, to be diligent and disciplined.”
Darrou recently played for the Tigers in the Indigenous All Stars game in Alice Springs, lining up on players the likes of Lewis Jetta, Steven Motlop and Liam Jones.
In the Dragons’ quest to go two steps further in 2013, Mangoni, Paine and Darrou’s stories are all prime examples of the hard work and perseverance required for football success.
Last Modified on 14/03/2013 17:06