Frankston Dolphins

As some of you may have known if you follow Frankston on social media, my father Adam Jardine (known on this forum as aj9172) passed away unexpectedly this week.

Dad was a passionate supporter of the Dolphins for the majority of his life, attending games from the 1980s all the way up to this most recent season. During the last 30 years he was a strong advocate for preserving the history and legacy of the VFL and its standalone clubs, and he never once hesitated to speak in their defense. In recent years he created the Dolphin Pod supporter group on Facebook with the goal of bringing all elements of the club together. We organised fan gatherings at a pub or cafe for away games, and this year helped run an open training session for supporters in order to lift morale after a tough loss to Tasmania. He was also involved in bringing a footy record back to our home games and contributed heavily to the club Recorder, as well as producing player badges to sell to fans. He came with me to the vast majority of our women's games since I got involved in 2023, and also helped me source camera equipment enabling me to film most games across both our senior and reserves teams over the past few years.

One silver lining is that dad saw us back on the road to success these past few years, having seen our men's team play two incredible finals campaigns in 2024 and 2025 and been there to see our reserve women win a Division 3 premiership in 2024. While this past season left a lot to be desired, I can know that he at least had hope that one day it would be us raising the VFL premiership cup on the last day of the season.

A huge thank you to the Frankston Football Club for paying tribute on Facebook, to our women's program who made a similar post on their own social media pages, and to the wider VFL community who have offered their support during this time.

It seems Frankston are already looking toward next year with re-signings being announced tonight. Both Trent Mynott and Taine Barlow have signed on for next year, with Barlow apparently comitted for 2026 as well. So now begins the tracking of player movements going into the off-season.

Re-Signed:

- Trent Mynott   - Taine Barlow   - Tyson Milne

- Joe Lloyd   - Tomoya Owens   - Noah Gown

- Josh Smith   - Matt Johnson   - Taj Campbell-Farrell

- Angus Grant   - Tom Murphy   - Nick Burke

- Harrison Coe   - Matt Nelson   - Blake O'Leary 

- Lachie Sharp   - Jackson Voss   - Ollie Moran

- Colby Nayna   - Seb Quirk   - George Grey

- Harrison Jones   - Lachlan Riley   - Alec McComb

- Jeremy Burton

In: 

- Bailey Lambert (Carlton) - Corey Ellison (Williamstown) - Tarkyn O'Leary (Sandringham) 

- Tom Blamires (Sandringham) - Darby Hipwell (Sandringham) - Kade De La Rue (North Melbourne)

- Will Hamill (Adelaide) - Kobe Askew (Oakleigh Chargers) - Clayton Gay (Dromana) - Ned Moodie (Casey)

- Jordan Doherty (Dandenong Stingrays) - Riley Mihailovic (Beaumaris)

Out: 

- Jack Newnes (Retired)

- Max Williams (Frankston YCW) 

- Jet Peckett (Sandringham)

- Kyle Stainthorpe (Rowville)

- Darcy Gilbert (Old Brighton) 

A strong chance now of knocking off both Coburg and Port in the coming two weeks, which should see them finishing in the top 10. ✌️👍

Our VFL side has a bye this week so I figured it's a good opportunity to look back at our season so far and look ahead to our run home. 

 Firstly, I'm quite happy to have broken last year's win record before the halfway point of the season. With the losses of players like Fordham, Stoddart, Lambert, Kai Owens, and the failure to lure back Brodie McLaughlin, what little talk I was hearing about Frankston during the pre-season was generally speculation on how poor we would be. While we've lost plenty of talent, there's no denying we've unearthed some solid recruits. Milne and Grey have been excellent for us, Gown hasn't had quite the impact in front of goal that I was hoping for but he shows promise. It's unfortunate that long-term injuries have hit some of our key players, because a fully fit Frankston team could make any team wary. Even with George Grey (one of our most important players this season) out for a significant chunk of the year, we've still done well at sticking to our game plan and executing well. 

Unfortunately some cracks have started to show as the season progressed. With the exception of our loss to Williamstown in Round 1, all of our losses so far have been frustrating encounters. Getting thrashed by Geelong in our first outing against a reserves side was not a great look for the club, but at least we followed it up by good wins against GWS and Sydney. But now we're coming off three straight losses; an ordinary performance against Southport, a narrow loss to Sandringham in a game we should have won, and an admirable effort against Werribee where we failed to capitalise on our chances (without getting into the atrocious umpiring.) Aside from Williamstown and Sandringham, these have been convincing losses. Losing to Southport and Werribee is something I was prepared for, but if we want to be taken seriously as a fringe chance for the finals then we need to be making a contest of these games. 

Looking ahead, this is our run home: 

- Brisbane (Away)

- Gold Coast (Home)

- Collingwood (Home)

- Northern Bullants (Away)

- Casey (Home)

- Coburg (Away)

- Port Melbourne (Home)

- Footscray (Home) 

Quite a lot of these games are going to be very hard to tip. Brisbane and Gold Coast aren't dominating this year but have found their way into the finals mix again. Collingwood and Casey are quite poor this year, I regard those as games we should be winning. Bullants, Coburg, and Port have all had inconsistent form, but have also shown they can be competitive on a good day. Preston and Coburg are still in the bottom 4 with 2 wins each, but on their home turf could present as danger games. Port also seem to be slowly clicking properly so it's hard to say what shape they'll be in by Round 19. Footscray, I struggle to see us beating. 

So where does that leave us? Quite a few of these games look winnable, and you'd expect us to notch at least a few more wins before the season ends, so barring some horrific drop in form we should expect to be around 8 or 9 wins at least. But I don't see a finals berth happening without at least 11 wins, potentially 12. So we need to win 6 of our remaining 10 games to snag a wildcard spot, 7 if we want to avoid the wildcard round entirely. 10-8 might see us sneak in, if we have a good percentage. Unfortunately these heavy losing margins so far will make that difficult. 

What is especially important is what happens post-season. Can we get the bulk of these players back on board for another year or will they depart for local footy or rival clubs? We need stability and a good internal culture that makes players want to stay, otherwise it will be a struggle to even make finals. 

I've decided to make a thread for compiling all of Frankston's list changes going into 2024. The club's already been busy with re-signings as well as couple of new recruits already. Here are the changes thus far: 

OUT: 

- Will Fordham (Williamstown)   - Chayce Black (Departed)   - Khyal Jacobson (Departed)

- Bailey Lambert (Noble Park)   - Austin Bradtke (Departed)   - Lachlan Jenkins (Departed) 

- Ryley Stoddart (Williamstown)   - William Brown (Departed)   - Luke Lloyd (Brisbane)

- Kai Owens (Retired from state football)   - Mitch Cuthbert (Departed)   - Nic Minchin (Departed)

- James Rendell (Retired)   - Pierce Roseby (Sydney Swans)   - Finn Ryan (Departed)

- Jaxsen Shinners (Western Australia)   - Tom Small (Mt Eliza)   - Mitch Szybkowski (Casey)

- Cooper Trembath (Departed)   - Bayleigh Welsh (Frankston Bombers)

IN: 

- Tyson Milne (Sandringham)

- Tomoya Owens (Sandringham)

- Tom Murphy (Somerville)

- George Grey (Casey)

- Noah Gown (Sandringham)

- Nick Burke (Port Melbourne)

- Taj Campbell-Farrell (Williamstown)

- Will Kennedy (Caulfield Grammarians)

- Matt Nelson (Dandenong Stingrays)

- Ollie Moran (Cheltenham)

- Jet Peckett (Bonbeach, Frankston Academy)

- Harrison Jones (Dandenong Stingrays)

RE-SIGNED: 

- Jackson Voss   - Seb Quirk   - Ryan Jacobs

- Colby Nayna   - Taine Barlow    - Trent Mynott

- Jack Newnes   - Joe Lloyd   - Josh Smith

- Matt Johnson   - Josh Butland   - Lachlan Reidy

- Trent Marotta   - Justin Davies   - Darcy Gilbert

- Jesse McManus   - Ben Hempel   - Blake O'Leary

- Lachie Riley   - Angus Grant   - Tom Roberts

- Connor Riley   - Max Williams   - Alex McComb

- Josh Stern

I'll update as more list changes or re-signings are announced. 

Frankston have announced that Tyson Milne will be joining the club for the 2024 season, having played for Sandringham Dragons in 2018-2019 and spending the last few years at the Zebras. 

Hugely disappointing to receive an email from the Dolphins today informing members that Adrian Lloyd has stepped down as CEO. No replacement named as yet. Not great timing for the club. I hope this isn't a sign of more upheaval off the field.