EAST Perth coach Tony Micale has no doubt that he has an improved team at his disposal this year, but much of that is because his coaching staff have now had 12 months with the playing group.
Micale coached East Perth to its hat-trick of premierships between 2000-02 before becoming an AFL premiership assistant coach with West Coast. He returned to the Royals last year and went about a cleanout of the football department when he took over the 2008 wooden spoon team.
Micale tried to instil some new discipline, a game plan based around being tough, uncompromising and disciplined. With the coaching staff knowing virtually none of the players it took some time for everyone to adjust to the new system.
That led to an up and down start to the year with the Royals winning just three of their first 11 games, largely because of things still not clicking and a horror injury run.
It turned around in the second half of the season as East Perth finished as the form team of the competition winning seven of its last nine games to only finish one game from finals action.
With not only Micale coming on board last year, but also football manager Mark Winnett, assistant coaches David Hynes, Matt Clape and colts coach Michael Braun, he was happy with the team he had assembled and is confident of the team's form continuing on from where it left off.
"We were all new last year. The whole coaching staff was new, the footy department in the main building was all new and we replaced the footy manager and a talent manager came on board," Micale said.
"The whole box and dice was new, and we had very little knowledge of players and the whole concept at that early stage. Now that we've worked with these guys and we've got training into them for 12 months obviously we are going to be better placed because we not only know their abilities, but also their characters better."
Micale liked much of what he saw with how his team played in the second half of the season and has no doubt that with the recruitment of David Wirrpanda, Jason Roe, Zac Beeck and Adam Prior, and a good blend of youngsters, that the side will be even better in 2010.
"There's no doubt in my mind that we've improved our list from last year and as I've said all along, we always thought we'd have a better back half of the year than we did first half because we got more players available, especially senior players," he said.
"We lost a lot of guys and it's not just a matter of missing six weeks, it's about whether they are able to train and they virtually have to do a pre-season again. We were in a pretty ordinary position, but things got better and now are looking pretty good."
Despite reigning fairest and best winner Trevor Oliver and 102-game veteran Jeremy Humm retiring, the Royals have retained captains Craig Glancy, Luke Webster and Michael Swan, as well as Brent Cowell, Craig Wulff, Andrew Merrington and Adam Pickering who lead the way tremendously.
"I reckon we are really fortunate to have a marvellous leadership group. We have our three captains in Glancy, Webster and Swanny, and then we have guys like Wulff, Merrington and Cowell to back them up," he said.
"We are very fortunate and they do have a big influence on the player group. We do realise that we have a very good leadership group, and they are very experience. They also actually get there and do what they say too, so we are really lucky with them."
Micale has also strengthened his coaching staff for 2010 with the arrival of Cam Shepherd from Subiaco, who was Scott Watters' right-hand man and Micale can't speak highly enough of what he has already shown he will bring to the table.
"I've been really lucky because Shep brings an enormous amount of experience. We didn’t know each other a great deal apart from that we met in a week for the state game and we got along very well then," Micale said.
"I've discovered in the short time that he's been here that we work very well together and it's something that I like to have and rely on, as I need a bouncing board. Plus his knowledge of footy is very good, particularly of the opposition so that will be an asset for us.
"Hynesy is very good with his group and what we've done is it gives us the opportunity to let Hynesy be more specific and specialise with the reserves, and we planned that because we don’t carry any dead wood in our reserves. I'm pretty happy with our set-up."
As for the rest of the league, Micale expects Claremont, Swan Districts and South Fremantle to be tough to beat, with all the others still competitive.
"It's hard to say, but I would think that from what I've heard and seen that Claremont, with 17 AFL-listed players, will be the big improvers and could be up there with Swans and South Fremantle," he said.
"The way I'm seeing it at the moment is that I'd say Claremont will be very hard to beat with the talent on their list, Swan Districts the same and South Fremantle because of what they did last year.
"All of the clubs like Perth, West Perth and Subiaco will be thereabouts again and I think it will be a really tight competition."
