Whittlesea Football Netball Club hosted a ‘Meet the Coaches’ night last week inviting both men and women footballers, under 19s, under 18s, under 17s and under 16s players to hear about the club’s future.
The club also announced Andrew Fairchild will return to the nest as senior assistant coach for 2024.
Fairchild played as an Eagle from 2010 to 2018, captaining the side from 2015 to 2018 and is a previous best and fairest winner.
He was assistant coach of the senior side from 2016 to 2018 before taking the role as senior coach at Kinglake Football Netball Club from 2019 to 2023, leading the side to a preliminary final his first year.
Whittlesea Football Netball Club president Adrian Stewart said the night had a ‘really good turnout’.
“Garry [Ramsay], whose our senior coach, had a chat to the player group and he included juniors and junior parents there so it was more [about] a direction he sees the club going and what his coaching philosophies are,” he said.
“I had a little chat as well to explain to them how we’ve got to the point we’re at. The last 18 months we’ve sort of went from a fairly small committee of people trying to do everything to now where we’ve got different departments.
“We’ve got a women’s football department, a men’s football department and we’re setting up a netball one as well so the departments can focus solely on what’s needed in those areas instead of people trying to do everything and it’s working really well.”
The new women’s football coach was announced at the event with the announcement to be made public later this week.
“This coach comes with a wealth of knowledge and experience and will be a really good asset,” Stewart said.
“Jarrod, our former coach, and Brad will remain in our women’s football department so we’re retaining them as well but they’re sort of stepping back and taking more of an off-field role.
“They’ve sourced this coach and they know this person is a good fit, which will see majority of the girls staying on.
“We’ve got about five or six players [who] will be coming up from the under 18s but I think there’s about 15 or 16 bottom age 18s that can probably rotate through the senior group next season. We’re pretty keen on seeing that happen as well.”
The men’s senior side has also retained majority of its players.
“We’ve signed probably 90 per cent of the side this year and if we haven’t signed some of them, it’s probably due to time restraints and other things. We’re pretty confident in retaining most of our players,” Stewart said.
Stewart said the next project of the club is setting up an academy for the junior groups for both boys and girls 13 years onwards.
“More will come out about that in the preseason but that’s probably the next thing on our radar,” he said.
