DIMBOOLA have continued its early build for the 2019 Wimmera league season with the announcement of two key midfield signings.
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Sam Godden and Fraser Jennings agreed to join the club a little over a week after Justin Beuglaar was announced as the side’s senior coach.
The pair will travel together from Melbourne for games with club president Col Campbell hopeful they will be able to train at least once a week during the season.
Godden had initially agreed to join the Roos for the 2018 season before non-football commitments saw him remain with Balranald in the Central Murray Football League.
“He’s played plenty of high level footy and was All Australian in the under-16s,” Campbell said.
“He’s 22 now but played his first Northern Territory Football League premier division game for the Waratahs when he was 15.”
Godden will join the side as an assistant coach having already worked with Beuglaar extensively at the Waratahs.
“He’s a highly rated left-footed midfielder,” Campbell said.
Campbell said Jennings played in a similar way to Elliot Braithwate.
“Fraser is a smaller half-forward who will run through the wing as well,” he said.
“I’m told he has exquisite skills and we always need more skilful ball users in our side.
“There is plenty of space out on the wings at Dimboola – if you’re able to put two Elliot Braithwaite-type players out there they’d be hard to stop.”
Campbell said the side’s next target would be a strong forward option.
“If we can get all these quality ball users together in the middle of the ground then we’ll be able to create plenty of opportunities for them,” he said.
“We are miles in front of where we were last season in terms of recruiting, we’ve already got a few irons in a couple of fires that we are working towards.”
Both Godden and Jennings continue Dimboola’s connection to Northern Territory Football League side the Waratahs.
Campbell said the connection allowed his club to have a strong recruiting base.
“They fly a lot of blokes up but we can get them out of Melbourne without flying them during the winter,” he said.
“We’re working hard to not have blokes fly in for the coming season – we know we need to bring blokes in from outside the area because we don’t have enough locally but we’d prefer them not to be flying.
“We’re also very mindful that we need to keep our list together and build on that, hopefully we just don’t have to battle the same injury concerns.”
The club had 45 players play in its senior side during this season and 67 players represented the reserves.