Cobram has appointed co-coaches for next year with Trevor Mills and Mat Hyde taking the reins.
Mills is a former Cobram premiership coach and was assistant coach under departing coach Rob Osborne, while Hyde joined the Tigers this year from neighbouring Murray Football League club Barooga.
Hyde, who is based in Melbourne, will be a playing co-coach.
He will oversee training with the Melbourne-based players and match and player reviews, while Mills will take care of the Cobram-based group.
They said they would plan trainings together.
‘‘We’ve got definite goals and values we want to bring to the team and we seem to be on the same page,’’ Mills said.
This will be Hyde’s first foray into coaching and something he always had an interest in pursuing.
Mills said the club wanted to appoint a coach from within the club because they would have a good knowledge of the young players.
‘‘Mat had all the attributes of what we thought would be a very good coach and living in Melbourne was a sticking point,’’ Mills said.
‘‘Then when we put it to him, he wanted me to be on the floor here because of local knowledge and because I’ve done it before.’’
The major recruiting problem Hyde and Mills face is replacing the goal-scoring power of Osborne, with the Mooroopna resident indicating he would like to play close to home due to work and family commitments.
Osborne started as coach at Cobram in 2010, and kicked 85, 100 and 73 goals in the following three seasons.
‘‘Big men are hard to replace, full stop, let alone 100-goal forwards,’’ Hyde said.
‘‘We probably need a key defender and other than that it will just depend what happens with the rest of our list.’’
Cobram finished sixth this year and was knocked out in the elimination final against Echuca United.
Hyde said it is ‘‘always a successful season when you make the finals’’, but losses early in the year meant the Tigers did not finish as high as they would have liked and ‘‘it’s always hard to win the competition from fifth or sixth’’.
He said some of the club’s juniors had the opportunity to play senior football due to injuries and their experience would set it in good stead for the coming season.
Hyde’s hope was to make the side competitive on a weekly basis next season and make sure it did everything to fulfil its potential.
‘‘If we’re good enough to win it, that’s great, if not and our best effort is to make the finals, then that’s also good,’’ he said.
Last Modified on 12/11/2012 09:57