Tenace brings Cats tenacity to Ammos
NEW Geelong Amateur coach Kane Tenace plans to adopt an attacking game style inspired by his years at the Cats as he plots the club’s path back to a BFL premiership.
The 33-year-old, who spent the past five years at St Mary’s, was yesterday unveiled as Ammos’ new coach on a twoyear deal in a non-playing capacity.
“Ammos have a proud history, especially over the last generation — they have been there or thereabouts for the last 15-20 years almost,” Tenace said at Queens Park yesterday.
“So at the end of the day, I’m here to have that ultimate success.
“It’s October at the moment, so there’s a lot of things to be done between now and even the start of next year, so we don’t want to look too far ahead.
“But at the end of the day that’s what the footy club is all about, winning senior premierships.”
Tenace’s coaching method will be moulded on the lessons learnt from his 59-game AFL career at Geelong under Mark Thompson between 2004 and 2009.
He sees potential in the club’s emerging young talent — Ammos won the recent Division 2 Colts premiership — and will call on the cool heads of an already strong pool of experience, headlined by Daniel Lovick, who will take on an assistant coaching role.
“I grew up during my main footy years at Geelong where it was that attacking game style, which I do like to play, but with that balance of defending in your half where we can turn the ball over quickly and get it straight back into the forwards,” Tenace said.
“Obviously things will depend a lot on personnel.”
Tenace admits his playing days are likely over and said the fire to pursue a coaching career had been slowly building for the past two or three season.
He described the Ammos’ job as “the perfect opportunity at the perfect time”.
This year he coached the Saints’ under-17 side and also had a key role as a playing assistant coach for the highly talented St Mary’s reserves side that cruised to the flag.
“I’ve had my time. I don’t think the hammies will stand up to another season of footy, so I’m more than happy to step off the field and dive headfirst into coaching,” he said.
President Simon Farrell said the club was rapt to secure a candidate of Tenace’s ilk after a long process to find replacements for co-coaches Rowan McSparron and Jarrod Young.
Young is remaining as a player, while McSparron will co-coach Colac in the GFL.
QUEENS Park will be known as KFC Oval for the next three years across football and cricket seasons in a key naming rights deal announced this week.
“This is an outstanding contribution by KFC to the promotion of sport in our region,” Newtown & Chilwell cricket president Frank Tuskes said.
Farrell said: “This is also a huge boost for us and we too would like to thank KFC for their support of sport at the grassroots level.”