New Joeys coach knows not to mess with success
NEW St Joseph’s coach Paul Carson says former captain Ben Capra has expressed a desire to play on again in 2019.
The three-time premiership player — twice as captain — works in Melbourne and has played 195 senior games with Joeys over the past decade.
He played alongside his new coach for six of those years when Carson wore the red, gold and black until 2015.
Carson, who took the senior coaching reins from Heath Jamieson last week, said his former skipper gave every signal that he would be playing at Drew Reserve next year.
“I was on the phone to Benny Capra last week and he’s probably one guy that’s sitting on the fence,” Carson said.
“But all indications he’s given to me, I think he’s really happy that I am the next coach and from what I’ve been told, he’ll be playing on again, which is great.
“I think 99 per cent of the list will stay the same.”
Carson has wasted no time in beginning the list management, but knows the back-toback premiership-winning squad does not need much tinkering.
“We’re pretty deep into that, securing the current list, trying to work out who’s moving on and who’s not and plugging some holes,” he said.
“We’re speaking to a lot of new faces, but admittedly a select few, basically. We feel we’re in the position we can pick and choose a little bit and purely just go after what we feel like we need to comp- lement the list we’ve already got. We understand we’ve got a good junior base coming through, so we really want to develop those guys too and put some time into those kids.”
Carson, who said he would still be coaching Anglesea had the Joeys job not become available, said he received support from both Jamieson and Collingwood premiership captain Nick Maxwell during the interview process.
“I was a little bit unsure and both those guys were really supportive and said just have a go,” Carson said.
“Maxy was one guy who said, ‘Listen, you’re only relatively new to the caper, this experience just to go through the process will be good for you anyway’.
“I’m definitely excited, mate, it’s good to be back at … I’ll call it my home club. A little bit daunting, though, with the shoes to fill and coming off back-to-back premierships, so no doubt we’ve got our work cut out.
“But we’ve gone through our playing list, our current list at the minute and feel there’s a lot of upside still to the group.”