ST MARY’S HUNTS FOR NEW COACH

OUTGOING St Mary’s coach Troy Mitchell says he offered to coach again next year but the club decided to go in a different direction.

He was leaving the Saints with unfinished business after guiding the GFL club to successive grand finals without premiership success.

The Saints’ coaching job is seen as one of the prime positions in local footy, given the club is also brimming with young talent after winning the past six under-18 division one premierships.

Mitchell, a career firefighter, yesterday said he proposed a similar coaching structure to this year’s — sharing the load between cocoaching assistants Jason Armistead, Russell McMahon and Kane Purcell.

Because of his working commitments his assistants stepped in when he was unavailable for training.

“I actually offered to coach again,” Mitchell said.

“They didn’t want to come together with the structure we wanted to put in place, so that just didn’t work out.

“It wasn’t (my) work in the end, it was probably the structure we wanted to put in place and work played a part in why we wanted to put a certain structure in place.

“But the club wanted to go a different direction in the end.”

The former Lara coach, who also coached the GFL inter- league side and was an assistant at Werribee VFL, joined the club at the end of 2015.

It was then co-coach Bryce Vincent who invited him to share the job, and it was the Saints’ fledging squad that attracted Mitchell to the role.

Mitchell said he was disappointed his time at the club had come to an end, but looked at his stint as a successful one.

“We got some good results. We would have liked to have gone a little bit better but when I look at it, in the two years we were there, out of all the clubs we had the best win-loss ratio and we played 49 players the first year and 44 players this year,” he said. “There’s a lot to be proud about.

“It would have been nice to finish the job off but that’s footy, that’s how it works out sometimes. I definitely wish the playing group all the best.”

St Mary’s president John McMahon said Mitchell’s working commitments would restrict his ability to commit to coaching next season.

“Due to increased work ... Troy Mitchell advised the club that he would be unable to continue as the stand-alone coach in 2018,” he said.

“The club would like to thank Troy and his assistants on the fantastic job they have done over the past two years developing our young list. They have put a structure in place which will hold the club in good stead in coming years.”

Grovedale is also searching for a new coach after parting ways with Craig McCaughan.