JEPARIT-RAINBOW has appointed Daniel Batson to take over from Tim Inkster as senior coach for the next Horsham District league season.
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Batson was assistant coach of the Storm this season in his first season at the club after being an assistant coach at Wimmera league side Nhill.
He also played up forward and in the ruck as a dangerous tall option.
The former Carlton rookie-listed player said he was excited to take over the top job next season.
“It didn’t suit Tim with his workload next year to stay in the job so the club offered it to me and I was happy to take it on,” he said.
“I’ve been an assistant coach for four years now and definitely wanted to try senior coaching.”
Storm president Jason Hutson said Daniel had been an enthusiastic member of the team in his first season.
“He has different ideas again from Tim and I know he was pretty keen to be a senior coach,” he said.
“Tim did a great job and right from pre-season he was professional with what he wanted to achieve in the season. Now with Daniel, he is one of our key men on the ground and his experience and leadership playing in different leagues is great for the club to have.”
Hutson said a grand final berth would be a realistic aim next season after coming close in recent years.
“We have had three pretty good years but we can’t get past that point at the end where we can go that next step,” he said.
“We need to be playing finals again and try and get into that grand final.”
Batson said adding a bit of pace and polish in the midfield would be key. He also said he was keen to turn around a mid-season drop in form, a common thread for the Storm in recent seasons.
“The most important thing is retaining that local core who train with us,” he said.
“Then we need to top up with a couple of really good players and that speed and final polish is what we don’t have at the moment, but we shouldn’t need to add too much to really have some success.
“It’s hard to put my finger on what has caused that drop in form in the middle part of the season in recent years but it’s something we tried to fix but it didn’t work.
“We will try some other options next year and try to have a strong year rather than just a strong start.”
