Neeld puts Grubber candidates on spot
THE vacant senior coaching role at Ocean Grove has garnered no shortage of interest, according to club great Mark Neeld.
A host of applicants have applied for the Grubbers’ top job in the wake of Paul Lynch’s resignation.
Neeld, who led Ocean Grove to premierships from 2000 to ’03, will play a key role in the search.
The former Melbourne coach and Collingwood and Essendon assistant is on a four-man panel that will interview candidates.
“My involvement with the football club is to ask some probing, open-ended questions of all the people who are going to present and ultimately make them feel comfortable to explain and show us how they would go about being a coach of Ocean Grove,” Neeld said.
“The good thing is, even though I have a very strong connection to the Ocean Grove Football-Netball Club, I don’t have relationships at all with the people who are going to apply. So I’m going in with a completely fresh set of eyes.”
He said the club was open to any candidate — playing or non playing — declaring it was not “pre-determined”.
“I have met with the group that will look for the next coach and I got an indication on the type of coach that they are looking for,” Neeld said.
“I also met the player leadership group on Sunday and I asked them about what type of coach they’re after and the areas we need to cover off in terms of leadership style, communication style and manager style and they were just general talks to get an idea of where they think the list is at from the players’ perspective.
“From here, the club is compiling a list of people who they wish to present to. They have been contacted by a number of people, which is fantastic that Ocean Grove is seen as a good club to coach, and my involvement will be to listen, watch the presentations that the perspective coaches give.
“I’ll have a couple of questions, and I know the other members of the panel will, and we’ll go through the process. We’ll have a criteria we’ll rate the prospective coaches on and end up appointing someone.”