Article from Maryborough Advertiser
Newly-appointed Maryborough Rovers coach, Scott Sellers says he is hoping an influx of fresh faces will mean a fresh start for the club.
Sellers, who will take over complete control of the side in 2012 after spending the past two seasons as co-coach alongside Jamie Elliott, said the club would be focusing on improving off the field as well as on it.
“What we’re really aiming to do is lift the image of the club,” he said.
“We want to focus on getting things right — making our club a really family-oriented place and getting what I would call the real ‘Rovers’ people back to the club.”
On the field, Sellers said the focus would be shifted to developing young, local players.
“We want to provide that avenue for young talent to play senior footy,” he said.
“We can give them that opportunity that maybe other clubs can’t, and they can go on and play major league footy with Maryborough or even go on further.”
Assisting Sellers in helping return Rovers to the glory days of the club’s back-to-back premierships in 1990/91 will be veterans Matthew Stevens and Ray Bramley, who have put their hands up to be assistant coaches.
“They’re both older blokes who have really good ideas about football and about the club and how we can move forward,” Sellers said.
“They’re a bit of a calming influence for me in that I can go to them and discuss things with them and get their views on different issues.
“We bounce off each other really well.”
In addition to a youth focus, Sellers said the newly-formed coaching panel has already identified fitness as one area in which the bar needs to be lifted.
“As well as developing our endurance and things like that, I think we got found in terms of our strength last year,” he said.
“So this pre-season is going to be pretty heavily focused on cross training — boxing, wrestling weights, running — all stuff that is going to bulk us up a bit.
“Ray Bramley is going to focus on the strength and conditioning side of things, whereas Matty (Stevens) will be helping to develop our game plan.”
Sellers said a focus on fitness was born in particular out of the side’s crushing defeat in this year’s semi final against eventual premier, Natte Bealiba.
“Just to see how much fitter those top sides were showed me where we need to be at to become competitive,” he said.
“We’ve got some hard nuts coming in to the side that will help us win the contested footy and if we can keep senior blokes like Brad Fraser, Matt Batson, Ray and Matty on the park all year, I think we can have a fair dinkum crack.”
Last Modified on 27/02/2012 09:47