The third year of the men’s hummel F-League has been successfully run, and won, and the young Boomerangs men’s team once again doing the club proud with a creditable fourth place and a semi final appearance.
Eight wins, a draw and five losses – at first glance appears not to be much of an improvement on the 2012 season (eight wins – six losses), however these results were achieved with a young team (with an average age of around 20), and without ‘imports’ (2012 saw both Mark Symington and Daniel Fogarty – both international players – play with the Boomerangs).
The losses in the 2013 season, were also close affairs, 1-4 to Dural in the first game of the season being the biggest losing margin. Indeed, the young Boomerangs team performed very well against eventual top three teams by defeating Premiers (and Grand Final winners) Vic Vipers 5-2 in Series 1, drawing with Dural 2-2 in Series Three and smashing Sydney Scorpions 8-2 also in Series Three.
Goal scoring was well spread across the team with young Tom Zeitlhofer leading all scorers with 10 goals for the season, closely followed by Daniel Fulton, Michael Reeves and Jake Wilsener on 9 each and Cal Smith and Sean Byrne on 7 each). Boomerangs ‘veterans’ Cal Smith and Jason O’Dwyer formed the backbone of the team, along with Fulton, Kristian Collins, Glenn Smith and Pat Ross-Magee from the 2012 squad. They were well supported by the upcoming ‘teenage squad’ including Senatore, O’Neill, Ciminelli, Popovich, Rathjjen and of course goal scoring machines, Zeitlhofer and Wilsener. Sean Byrne, a recent Queensland import, balanced out the team nicely. The young players all received good court time – with faith being shown in them by Coach Simon Aitchison; they will be stronger contributors in 2014.
The young Boomerangs team also had one of the better defensive records of the season, and were well served at the back by goal keepers Angelo Konstantinou and Keiran Stroh – indeed even rookie teenage goal keeper, Nick van Aalst played a full game against the Jaguars and a half game against Melbourne Heart in Series 5.
So, a fourth place it ended up being – but with two losses against lowly teams (St Albans and Melbourne Heart) and several close losses to the top four teams, the Boomerangs could easily be a top two team, and indeed challenge for the title in 2014. The young squad will be more experienced and a more complete ‘team’ in 12 months time, and they will no doubt be in the running to seriously challenge for top spot.
Another mark of success of the season was the inclusion of a number of Boomerangs players in the Australian Futsalroos train-on squad. Aside from current Futsalroo representatives Konstantinou and Fulton, Australian Coach Steve Knight has invited three further Boomerangs players to train with the Futsalroo squad. We congratulate Jake Wilsener, Michael Reeve and Cal Smith on this fantastic and well-deserved recognition. Our hopes are that they will be selected to play in upcoming tournaments in Asia.
So as we wind down the F-League for 2013, we head into the NSW Premier League competition, full of confidence knowing that the majority of the F-League men’s team will be available to play NSW Premier League across the Youth and Men’s teams.