SELECTIVE recruiting, developing the club's own and bringing through youngsters is the goal of Perth coach Andrew Jarman as he enters his second year with the Demons.
In past seasons, the Demons have recruited heavily and it hasn’t paid off with a finals appearance not happening since 1997.
The other thing that has coincided with that recruiting has been heavy personnel loss at the end of each season, but Jarman has been able to maintain the majority of his squad for 2010 and will look for improvement to come from within.
With Steven Armstrong, Matthew Ferguson and Matthew Moody arriving last year, and Troy Cook and Ross Young the year before, and with all five staying and looking terrific heading into 2010, there was no need to top up that experienced, quality group anyway.
Jarman will back those guys in, along with the possible return of Andrew McDougall, certain return of Justin Sprigg and then some youngsters up from the colts to provide natural improvement.
The Demons' showed signs of what they were capable of in 2009 and would have been a danger had they snuck into the finals. In the end, they fell a game short and Jarman and the group has worked hard over the pre-season to try to make sure they make it in 2010.
"I've been very happy with the attitude and commitment by the playing group coming into their second pre-season with me as their senior coach. There's a better feel around the place, the players are a lot more comfortable with their role and we have focused on our skill volume," Jarman said.
"We've also made sure that our new colts players that have come in have adapted quickly and they've been pretty good. Our aim is to be very competitive, like all eight other clubs want to be, and our goal is to play finals football otherwise let's not turn up."
While Jarman has been happy with the progress the club has made on and off the field since his arrival last year, he knows there is plenty of room left for improvement.
Jarman wants to develop a strong culture of strong, winning football at Perth and that can only happen with senior players and those in key positions at the club providing leadership, and for the young players to rise through the ranks to play regular league football.
"I've had wonderful support from our board and our new CEO Brian Leys has been on board for three months and he has been outstanding. I'm really excited about where we are at knowing that I made a decision not to go and recruit just for the sake of recruiting," he said.
"This club has done that for a long period of time and it hasn’t guaranteed any success because they picked up Jarman, Armstrong, Young, Ferguson and Moody, and it hasn’t led to finals. Our three or four-year plan means we need to get our juniors playing league football. We're around 40 per cent at the moment, which is poor, and we intend to get that up to around 65 or 70.
"If we recruit, we recruit quality and character otherwise we won't. Central District in the SANFL has won nine flags out of 10 and their local talent playing league football is around 70 per cent and that is outstanding. We've been like a dog chasing its tail, and a lot of people have put in a lot of hard work and I respect that, but we've had to start again to put some better structures in place."
The Perth colts has made the finals the last two seasons and Jarman will be keen to give many of them a chance to show what they are made of during the 2010 season.
"You will see the names of Michael Florio, Aaron Elari who was the under-18s champion, Liam Smith, Dominic Stearne and that's just to name a few," Jarman said.
"It's important for these guys to understand that they have done the hard yards playing through the junior programs and they need to see a reward at the end of it. If they keep seeing all these big signatures on board, they will get disillusioned and not stick around."
The skill-level at Perth has long been a problem with the Demons as well, and it's something Jarman will continue to work on with his players and he has seen improvement from when he took over to now.
"There has been a real big improvement more so after the second half of last year where I decided to give some responsibilities to players on game day. We worked a little bit more on our shorter type game, which was pleasing," he said.
"We have implemented some good kicking programs and now we have just started putting in a similar program to all our junior grades because we have to give these guys half a chance when they come into senior footy. I have been delighted with the progress in that area."
Jarman has also surrounded himself with some new coaching staff and wants everyone involved with his club to refer to the reserves as the development team.
Rick Curtis will take over that side as coach, with assistance from former Swan Districts midfielder Daniel Richmond and former Demon Brett Edwards. Gary Pool will be one of Jarman's league assistant coaches along with Damien McMahon and he's happy with the mix he's got.
"Gary Pool from Trinity-Aquinas has come on board as our defensive line coach and he's been outstanding. He's going to be a good acquisition and Brett Edwards will be an assistant defensive coach in our development side," he said.
"Rick Curtis is the new development coach and then we've got more assistant coaches for the development side, which is what we call the reserves. I hate it being called reserves or twos so I call it the development side. I think reserves puts the players down when you say they are playing there. I don’t think boys should be called reserves footballers."
