Pre-Season Update

Two weeks back from the Christmas break, Norwood’s General Manager of Football Daniel Menzel provides an update on how the Senior Men’s Pre-Season is travelling. 

Menzel, who also coaches the forward line at Norwood, said the Redlegs were off to a good start in 2026.

“It’s nice to be back in 2026, and into the new year,” Menzel said.

“The Norwood Oval deck looks as nice as I’ve seen it, which means that we are getting close to the season starting, and trial games won’t be too far away.”

The Redlegs have an open match-simulation session on Monday, February 16 and an internal trial on Monday, February 23.

Both sessions are open to the public, The Premiers Bar at Coopers Stadium will be open for drinks and Bistro Meals from 4:30pm on those two Monday dates, as well as every Thursday.

“It’s a very exciting time of year. It comes around quickly, but I think across all grades we’ll be firing,” Menzel said.

“What is pleasing from a coaching perspective, is that you can see that a lot of the guys did the work over the Christmas period.

“It’s always a challenging time, three weeks that they have off, and it’s the festive time of year when people go back home and go away. It’s clear the guys have put the work in.

“We are really healthy in terms of injuries as well, so we are really happy with the way we are sitting.”

Click the link below to see the full injury update.

The Senior Men’s squad completed their second 2km trial of the pre-season in late January.

“There were personal best results everywhere,” Menzel said. “We had 42 players run the 2km time trial, and 35 of them beat their time from December, and the majority of those were PBs.

“To have 50% of the group run PBs, it’s extremely pleasing.

“With our quickest time being 6m:12s, and everyone in the group running almost within a minute of that is really impressive, it’s a credit to the playing group and the strength and conditioning coaches.”

Declan Hamilton – who is approaching 150 games at the club – took out the time trial with his time of 6:12, followed by Alec Wright, Alastair Lord and Sam Simpson.

“Sam Simpson beat his time by 17 seconds which was great, Mac Seal ran 16 seconds better, and a shout out to Max Hodges who took 21 seconds off his time and Tom Donnelly improved his time by 20 seconds.

Menzel had been impressed with the new faces in the program, including the likes of Aaron Francis from the Sydney Swans, Harry Boyd returning from St Kilda and Kade Dittmar from Central District, as well as a large cohort from last season’s U18s.

“We have roughly 20 new players that we’ve brought into the club, with the U18s that have come up and the recruits we’ve brought in,” he said.

“That’s a third of our group, and I wouldn’t say that’s been noticeable on the track which means they’ve fitted in seamlessly, they’ve adapted to the drills really well.

“There’s a couple in rehab, but the majority have been out on the track and learning new terminology, the game plan, but it’s also a taxing time of year, so to be able to take all of that in whilst training under fatigue has been impressive.

“Josh Murphy has come over from the Ovens and Murray League and you can see he has that instinct, that natural goal sense, he moves really well as a forward. I’ve been working with the forwards and it’s exciting with Tristan Binder, Jackson Callow, Finn Heard, as well as the smalls like Matt Harms who is class and Connor Ling who has had a great pre-season.”

Listen to the full chat with Daniel Menzel on the latest episode of The Redlegs Review Podcast, via the link below.