New Tarrawanna head coach Jason Wenig is putting his faith in the kids as the Blueys look to forge their way back into the Premier League finals this year.
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Wenig took over the reins from Scott Chipperfield last November after spending the past couple of seasons as the club's youth grade mentor.
It's shaping as an important year for the Blueys, who are looking to return to the first-grade finals for the first time since 2020.
The side started last campaign in red-hot form, sitting in second spot after five rounds, before eventually falling to seventh place by season's end.
However, Wenig remains confident that Tarra aren't far off booking a return to the top five, and is putting faith in his youth side connections to lead the way.
"We've brought in a new under-20s coach (John Sereno) and he's only kept four or five players, so it's a changing of the guard in the under-20s, which is not bad as a refresh," he said.
"But it's a fairly young club now, to be honest. We have a good average age of say the 24 or 25 mark, which [veterans] 'Stoney' (Darren Stone) and Matt Naylor probably up a bit. But it's quite a young side with a sprinkling of experience, which hopefully goes OK for us."
It's quite a young side with a sprinkling of experience.
- - Jason Wenig
The Blueys moved quickly to retain the bulk of their Premier League squad during the off-season, and have two new captains in Ben Learmonth and Kyle Kirkland.
Other key re-signings include goalkeeper Adam Rodriques, Stone and Jake Levy.
The Blueys have also been active in the player market, bringing in South Coast United striker Jamie Wakeling, as well as Wollongong Olympic young guns Harrison Jones, Dylan Hogan and Bailey Morphett.
The club also brought in former Camden Tigers NPL player Mitchell Brooker on Thursday, following the addition of Matias Toro from the Hills Brumbies.
In terms of departures, the Blueys weren't hit as hard as some of their IPL rivals this off-season, though they did lose promising youngster Nick Tomasiello to Coniston.
"It's taken a little bit of time to build our squad, but we've retained well and grabbed some fringe players from the big spenders. We're shaping up to be competitive," Wenig said.
"I don't think you want to be training all of this time without being a goal of sneaking into fourth or fifth. You've got those big-money clubs, so it's kind of like one of those Real Madrid-Barcelona things, where you'd think the big three will land there somewhere in that top three.
"And then I'd say Bulli, Port Kembla and Coniston are the teams I'd be hoping that we're fighting it out for fourth or fifth spot. It's definitely a goal for us to sneak into the five.
"But who knows, we could do a Leicester and finish second. But we need to put that challenge towards ourselves to make the semis."
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Joshua Bartlett
A sporting fanatic who is keen to promote all codes in the Illawarra and abroad. Mercury's chief football reporter.
A sporting fanatic who is keen to promote all codes in the Illawarra and abroad. Mercury's chief football reporter.
