The 2013 post-season break is all but over for players aspiring to a place in the Brisbane Strikers’ senior National Premier Leagues squad for 2014.

While preparations at youth and junior levels have already begun, senior team coach Chay Hews and his assistant, Graham Harvey, are set to call prospective players in for training commencing at Perry Park on 3 December.

That’s when Hews will embark in earnest on his first season as ‘the gaffer’ and signal the end of a rest period that began on 1 September when the Strikers were eliminated from the 2013 playoffs by eventual winners Olympic FC, after finishing in fourth position at the end of regular season fixtures.

Training will be by invitation only, with Hews having been in contact with a number of players as he looks to strengthen a squad that struggled for consistency in its last campaign as it battled injury problems and a lack of cover in certain positions, most notably in the centre of defence.

Hews said this week that he had been encouraged by the enquiries he had received from players looking to join the club, but that it still was not a simple task to accommodate them.

“We need the right players for certain positions and we also want the right kind of personalities – the type who will create the atmosphere we want in the dressing room”, Hews said.

“They have to want to come to the club for the right reasons.”

Hews also said he was looking at promoting a number of players from last year’s Under-20 and Under-18s squads to a senior squad that will be built around players returning for the second year of two-year contracts.

This means that players such as wingers Jonti Richter and Greg King, midfielder Michael Angus, striker Matt Thurtell and goalkeeper David Chambers will form the nucleus of a squad that Hews is already suggesting will be young and attack-focused.

Thurtell, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in April, is progressing well in his rehabilitation following knee ligament surgery and is expected to be ready to play within the first month of competition.

 

Words & Image: Brisbane Strikers FC