Wangaratta City has thrown itself into contention for a big season in AWFA after securing a number of key players.
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The club finished sixth in the competition last year, but is confident it has assembled its best squad in years.
Headlining the new additions is Shepparton South export Brendan Barton.
Wangaratta assistant coach Mario Antonello admitted Barton will be a very good player in the competition.
“We’re really happy to have Barto on board,” Antonello said.
“He’s solidly built and can play midfield or left back.
“He’s trained with us since December and we played a game in Melbourne on the weekend and he was certainly in the better two or three guys.
“It makes a big difference when you sign bigger-bodied, mature players, as opposed to young kids.
“You certainly need young guys for the future, but in AWFA you’ve just got to make sure you’ve got good people because it’s not worth putting up with people you don’t get on with.”
Goalkeeper Nathan Chin also joins Wangaratta from the Shepparton club.
Former junior Jarryd McKellar also makes a return home after playing state league in Melbourne, along with Matt Jordan, who has spent his most recent years with Murray United’s under 20s squad in the NPL.
Striker Santu Atana rounds out the list and will add some class to the forward third.
“He (Atana) will be a really good addition because he plays up front and will take a bit of pressure of the forward boys and score some goals,” Antonello said.
However, the club remains unclear about the movements of star UK import Adam Burchell, who is still to be confirmed as one of the club’s Visa signings.
“Connor Heffernan is obviously coaching us and he’ll still be a Visa player,” Antonello said.
“We haven’t lost too many blokes, which is good, so fingers crossed we’ll be competing again with the better teams.
“Being in Wangaratta and away from the Albury-Wodonga catchment area, we’re quite similar to teams like Myrtleford and Cobram.
“We don’t have a uni in our town and a population of 120,000, so we’ve got to actively look for players to recruit.”
Ironically, Wangaratta City kicks off its FFA Cup qualification campaign on the road against Shepparton South.
“We certainly won’t have the strongest team out there, but we’ll give a few guys a run and see how we go,” Antonello said.
“Last year we won four games and we were drawn to play a Melbourne to play a stage league one team.
“The AWFA team we played didn’t want to play us at any other time than the Sunday and we got scheduled to play away in Melbourne on Saturday night, so we had to forfeit our FFA Cup game.
“If you enter those cups you don’t get to play against that calibre of team every week.”