PORTLAND Football Netball Club are preparing to further improve their junior football program after an eventful last few years, with new coaches for 2022, as well as adding an under-12 side to the ranks.

Vaughan Hockley remains as under-16 coach, co-coaching alongside Mark Finck.

Tony Jackson stays on as under-18.5 coach, while Justin Impey moves down an age group to coach the new under-12 side, with youngster Alex Sealey taking on Impey’s old position as under-14 coach.

It is Sealey’s first time coaching a football side of any sort, but he has coached basketball before, and both Impey and Hockley will be around to support him.

Both Sealey’s appointment and the expansion of a Hampden under-12 side show the steps Portland are taking to ensure both their football club and junior program are sustainable into the future, not that the football club was unsustainable before.

Portland’s move into the Hampden junior football competition has been quite tricky with the first season, 2020, cut to just three matches for the under-14 team and two matches for the under-16 team before coronavirus restrictions cancelled the remainder of the season.

Season 2021 was better with 13 of a possible 15 home and away rounds played before the season was cancelled – once again without a premier being decided.

Portland finished seventh in the under-14s with five wins from 13 games, while the under-16s finished eighth, also with five wins from 13 games.

Trophies will come, too, at all levels of football with a sustainable junior program.

The most important things at a junior football club, however, do not involve winning.

For the player, it is enjoyment, and for a club it is participation.

The two are closely linked, and Impey foresees both in the future for his under-12 side.

“It’s good to see they’ve given the opportunity for under-12s to start, really,” Impey said.

“It’s just going to be a progression for Portland to get some sort of quality in there with our under-12s, under-14s and under-16s.

“It will come in line with all the other clubs really, because there is a bit of a step to under-14s.”

Impey has coached Portland’s Hampden League under-14s for the last two years, and before that coached under-12s at the now-defunct North Portland JFC.

“I wasn’t going to coach, but then when I found out the under-12s were coming around, I decided to get back in… I’ve got a younger one playing in there as well,” Impey said.

“It’s a progression as well from the Auskick, the kids will see us running around in the jumpers, and say ‘that’s where I want to play next year’.

“Going off the Portland (Greater South West JFL) team from last year, there was plenty of talent in there, so hopefully those kids hang around and we can have a crack.”