Focus on Eagles’ talent
NEWLY appointed Newtown and Chilwell coach Damien McMahon says the club will focus on developing from within as it aims to get back into the top five next season.
The former Perth coach and Claremont assistant admitted the chance to take the main role at his junior club was a driving factor to come back to Victoria, and said he would work with the younger Eagles on taking the next step towards playing senior football.
“It’s been something I’ve always wanted to do, it’s the club I grew up at and played most of my football at before I moved to Western Australia and I always thought if an opportunity came up one day that I would love to be the senior coach at the club I’ve spent so much time at,” McMahon said.
“There is a list of players the club has been looking at and talking to for the last couple of months, some local Geelong guys, but to be honest I’ll be more focused on developing the younger players we have at the club already.
“Our reserves side just won the grand final and they were primarily made up of a lot of young, talented players, so that will be a focus of mine and the club’s to really try and develop those young guys.
“That’s something I think is a strength of mine as a coach, working with the younger players and getting them to the next level to be good senior players which will drive the club forward.”
After years of coaching in and around Perth, McMahon has developed a game style conducive to the quicker ovals that are often found in WA, but knows that will need some tinkering in the GFL.
He said he would also need some time to assess the state of the list before coming up with something fresh for the Eagles in 2017.
“We’ll have a massive focus on getting our players fitter, that’s probably the one thing the group lacked a little bit of this year, but how we want to play will be as an attacking team with a pretty potent forward line.
“We’ll want to move the ball quickly and do everything we can to keep the ball in the front half the ground.
“But I want to have a bit more of a look at some of the vision of the games from this year and get an understanding of what the players’ capabilities are. The game styles I’ve used in Western Australia are probably not going to be suitable to GFL football, it’s a completely different competition.”