Anakie has made a bright start to its off-season recruiting with the return of midfield gun Brad Gerrard from GFNL club North Shore.
The Roos’ 2018 best-and-fairest winner spent two years at De Motts Road before joining North Geelong for the 2021 season and then heading back to the Seagulls for the past three years.
Coach Jayke Mawson is excited by the prospect of Gerrard working alongside former Western Bulldogs and Geelong star Luke Dahlhaus.
“Bringing him in with his skilful left foot on the outside, hopefully, he works in with Luke, and we have a bit more midfield depth, which is what we needed,” Mawson said.
“We went pretty well with contested ball (this year) but didn’t use it well going forward.
“Hopefully, we can get him around the pill as much as we can.
“But, if we need to put him on the wing, we can as well.”
Gerrard joins Mitch Gavin and Kyle Eibl in returning to the club after time away.
Gavin managed 14 senior games in two seasons with GFNL club Lara across 2022-23.
Eibl has 72 senior games to his name since debuting in 2016.
“They give us some depth, (and they’re) one-pointers as well, which helps because we don’t know exactly where we’ll be points-wise,” Mawson said.
“I think we’ve got 44, but we could argue for a few more, which will help us as we have no real junior system.
“Mitch will be good off half-back, and Kyle played seniors when he was young at Anakie, so you never know what we’ll get out of him.”
However, they are resigned to losing ruck Ajang kuol Mun, who is set to join VFL outfit Port Melbourne and have a different club as his interchange in 2025, which has them on the hunt for a replacement.”
“I’ve been sending out messages to a few boys, and (assistant coach) Ry Endrei and a few others have been hitting them up,” Mawson said.
“You name them we’ve messaged them and called them. So, it’s just play it by ear now.
“Hopefully, we’ll have one soon.”
Gerrard, who co-captained the Seagulls in 2024 but missed seven games while overseas, is the second confirmed departure from Windsor Park, joining North Geelong-bound Jordan Purcell.
K rock Football understands assistant coach Mahli King and best-and-fairest and GFNL Team of the Year member Nathan Arbon also won’t be at Windsor Park next year.
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