Locals to drive the rebuild of Lions

NEW Palm Beach Currumbin QAFL coach Russell Maloney says the club is rebuilding but can avoid the complete collapse that other football giants have suffered.

The Lions will open their 2021 QAFL campaign with a Round 2 fixture against 2020 premier Morningside at Salk Oval on Saturday.

Palm Beach Currumbin featured in four grand finals between 2016 and 2019, winning two of them.

The retirements of Jarryd Douglas, Jesse Derrick, Brock Askey, Jackson Emblem and Black Schneider and the departed of Thomas Thynne and Tyler Cornish to Victoria has forced the club to rebuild.

“We are looking mainly at a rebuild and we are going back to the local boys,” Maloney said.

“We haven’t spent a lot of money to bring players in and rather looking at guys who have been around the club for a few years who couldn’t get a gig because of our success.

“We don’t want to fall off the cliff. I’m confident we will be competitive enough to play finals.

“We have asked the question of ourselves: do we fall away because we have had our success or do we hold strong and steady and improve from there?”

Maloney said he was excited by the prospect of coaching a QAFL side for the first time after an impressive career from the sidelines.

He won a premiership in country Victoria while an assistant coach, was an assistant at the Lions when they won the senior premierships in 2017 and 2018, took the club’s colts to a grand final in 2019 and won the premiership with the colts in 2020.

One man who will be a key

inclusion for Maloney is captain Stephen Thynne who has returned after battling injuries over the past 18 months.

Thynne ruptured the ACL in his left knee in the 2019 grand-final loss to Surfers Paradise and hurt the ligaments in his left ankle in the opening quarter of his only game in 2020.

The respected midfielder said it was a tough decision to return to football and revealed he would cap the number of games he would play in 2021 while moving into an assistant coaching role.

“I struggled mentally to figure out if I was going to come back or not,” he said.

“I slowly built in the off-season. I’m looking at playing half the year between coaching.

“That gives me a chance to … keep on top of the body.”