Leopold coach Sam Hughes has declared off-season acquisition Darby Henderson a certain starter for the clash with reigning grand finalists St Joseph’s at Lorne on Easter Saturday.
Henderson didn’t feature in any of the Polders’ practice matches, but Hughes confirmed the former Lara ball-magnet is right to take on Joeys.
“He’s keen as mustard,” Hughes said.
“He’s obviously been busy with a new bub arriving recently; he and (partner) Phoebe have obviously had their hands full.
“I just said to him, mate: ‘Look, I know you’re keen, and you want to have an impact with us and show how invested you are.’
“And he’s been absolutely that. He hasn’t missed a beat. Even from a leadership point of view, he’s been huge through preseason since he joined.
“But, in terms of practice matches, we put the handbrake on that and enabled him to spend some much-needed time with the family, and he’ll pull a jumper on on Saturday.”
Henderson is one of several new faces who could pull on a Leopold guernsey at senior level for the first time this weekend.
However, Hughes will wait until after training tomorrow (Thursday) night to confirm the Lions’ first lineup for 2026.
The first-year mentor is planning for Leopold, which missed the finals in 2025 after winning the previous two premierships, to play “a pretty exciting brand” of football.
“We’ve been pretty big on, throughout the preseason, wanting to back the boys in, and trying to use their assets, which for much of our playing list is their ability to cover the ground, speed, ability to use the footy well, and trying to play off that,” Hughes said.
“Obviously, we can’t do that all the time, but being able to take the game on and take risks and try and get some speed on the ball at times, that’s a big focus for us this year.
“In different games, it’s going to look different at times. But, we’ve also been able to educate the boys a bit over the break around what games will give us and what gears that we need to have.
“We can’t be go, go, go all the time, so giving the boys, ‘What does it look like in this scenario? How do we play if we need to slow the game down?’
“Certainly utilising our strengths and what we think our strengths are as a playing list, and being able to use a game style that supports that, which is trying to get teams on the hop and trying to get teams on the way back towards goal.”
X: @krockfootball
