NEW A Grade senior coaches Alex Schulz and Ash Morrison will seek to take Jeparit-Rainbow up the ladder this season.
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After a disappointing year last year in which the club finished second from the bottom with one win, Schulz is confident the side can improve its fitness and its standing in the league.
“Our main focus this year will be fitness,” she said.
“Despite our result last year, we actually feel as though we are quite a skillful side. But to keep up with the better sides, we need to improve our fitness and hopefully subsequently reduce some of our second half skill errors.”
Schulz and Morrison are first-time senior coaches, with Morrison expecting the pair to work well together.
“I think we work really well together. We think similarly about the game and play a very similar style of game too, so we are on the same page about most things. We both play in the mid-court,” she said.
“Alex knows everyone really well and knows who plays where.”
Morrison said there was a good feeling around the club heading into the new season.
“Training has been going well and we have had a lot of numbers. There has been a lot of enthusiasm at the club,” she said.
The pair will also look after the Storm’s B Grade side this year.
Schulz said that would give the pair the opportunity to create a good vibe across both sides.
“We were keen to coach both A and B grades to give us control over the rotations up and down the grades each week,” she said.
“At a club that is struggling to recruit and maintain a full list of players, it’s important to make sure everyone has fun, knows they are valued and feel as though they contribute to their teams each week in order to retain our players for the future.”
Jeparit-Rainbow starts its season away to Taylors Lake on April 7.
Q and A with Ash Morrison and Alex Schulz
What are your team’s goals for this year?
We are still coming together. We really want to win a few more games than last year. We want to try and create a fun culture that people want to be part of and hopefully retain the players for next year.
We want to make sure that we develop our juniors well, by not only bringing them up to A grade, but also by making sure they get plenty of senior game time through B grade. We also want to make sure everyone gets a fair go.
What urged you both to take on the coaching role?
We saw an opportunity to step up and help make a difference at Jeparit-Rainbow. To be honest we were a bit nervous about the whole thing. But we are keen to contribute positively to the club and pass on some of our knowledge and experience to the group.
Who do you expect will be the teams to beat this season?
Obviously the reigning premiers Natimuk United will be hard to beat. They are such a close knit and experienced team, but we are looking forward to the challenge of playing them and will hope to learn a lot from our games against them. The other strong teams will be the usual suspects, Harrow-Balmoral and Noradjuha-Quantong.