PATHWAY TO COACHING

How are you enjoying your transition from playing to coach these days? (The classy defender played his last season in the A-League with Sydney FC in 2017—2018, pictured, before taking over at NPL club Wollongong Wolves as coach.)

AIt is obviously very different. When you are a player, you turn up, play or train and then just go home. When you go into coaching, you take it with you all the time. It is challenging and I knew it would be coming out of playing football. You need that, you need something to motivate you and get out of bed in the morning. I am excited by the challenge. You cannot play forever. I was lucky enough to play until I was 37. The time was right for me and the opportunity was there for me at Wolves. I needed to completely pull myself away from the playing side of things if I was going to coach, so there was no thoughts of being a playing-coach.

It was almost a 20-year professional football career. Did you always feel your next step was coaching?

ANot at all, I never had a plan to do it. When I retired, I thought I would just sit on the beach and enjoy my life with my wife and kids. Things happen and the opportunity came up. The club wanted me to do it and I thought it would be an opportunity to give back to my area. I will see how it goes but I certainly did not plan to go this way.

There was plenty of talk about A-League expansion to the Wollongong area. How did it go down when they did not get a new club?

AYeah, there was Wolves looking to get in and Southern Expansion, which both did not get in. That is always the goal and the challenge to get our club into a position that the FFA will let us into the A-League. Our area has a strong history of football and very good players coming out of the region. There is a lot of talent down here and there are some phenomenal juniors.