The Bloods have elevated assistant coach and ruckman Gordon for next season, and he’s determined to shake Elmore’s tag of competition easy-beats over the course of the club rebuild.
Elmore finished eighth in 2021, with three wins and nine losses in a COVID-19-interrupted season.
“It’s basically just gaining back that respect from the league,” Gordon said.
“A lot of teams come in and probably think of it as an easy win, knowing that they’re just going to roll us over or it’s going to come to the second or third quarter and we’ll drop off.
“I want teams to come in and go, ‘all right, we’ve got Elmore this week, it’s going to be a tough slog’.
“I want us to be one of those dog-fighting teams where teams are going to come off the oval feeling sorry for themselves.“
Both mentors are up for the challenge of the Bloods rebuild, with a target of reaching the club’s first finals series since 2016.
“This season, I assisted Dyl (Friedberger), and having the year with him built a very strong relationship with him,” Gordon said.
“We’re both looking forward to seeing the Bloods go through a rebuild and, hopefully, bringing them back into finals.
“Obviously we’ve had a pretty disappointing year — a lot of things just didn’t go our way.”
Over the course of an extended pre-season, however, Gordon is excited to see what his side can produce next year.
“There is a lot of promise within the playing group,” Gordon said.
“We just have to go through a few more things, tick off a few more boxes throughout a large pre-season that we’re going to have.
“Hopefully from there, we’ll set up a strong foundation.”
Early list movements at Elmore include the departure of the experienced Farran Priest, who returned to Murray Football Netball League outfit Echuca United to take up the senior coaching role.
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