Murphy’s Super coaching ticket
GEELONG Netball Club coach Gerard Murphy has reached the highest level of coaching accreditation in Australia.
The Geelong Cougars mentor recently achieved his highperformance coaching accreditation, making him eligible to coach at Suncorp Super Netball League level.
Having started as an assistant with the Cougars in 2008, Murphy has been a pivotal component of the club’s recent success, with all three of its teams sitting in the top four on their Victorian Netball League tables.
He said his latest achievement ranked high among the long list of his accomplishments in the game.
“I am ecstatic to have been awarded my high-performance coaching accreditation, the top netball coaching certificate in Australia,” Murphy said.
“The process began when I moved to Geelong Netball Club in 2014 as the head coach of Geelong Cougars, which has provided a perfect environment to learn and leverage the huge amount of talented athletes in the Geelong region.”
Murphy led the Cougars to two premierships in 2017 in under-19s and division one.
But his roles in the Netball Victoria pathway extend beyond the VNL, having taken on jobs as an assistant coach of the state under-19s team and head coach of the zone academy program, which assists in the development of talented players, coaches, umpires and team managers.
A high achiever as a player, he represented Victoria from 2003-09 and captained the Australian under-23 team from 2003-05.
But while the HPCA targets the highest level state league and Australian Netball League coaches to help them prepare for an elite environment such as Suncorp Super Netball, Murphy said his immediate focus was at the Cougars.
“I am now qualified to coach at Suncorp Super Netball level, which is a thrilling prospect, (but) in the shortterm I am excited about implementing the learning with the Geelong Cougars and continuing to support our extremely talented athletes and coaching group to achieve their goals and perform at their best,” he said.
“It’s awesome to be part of a very small group of people who have achieved this milestone.”