
By Tania Martin
EMERALD Football Club is on track for the beginning of the 2006 football season appointing three new senior coaches.
Pre-season preparations will kick off on Monday, 28 and Wednesday, 30 November. New coaches, Rowan Pascoe will lead the seniors, Andrew Rolfs the reserves, and Graeme Steer the under 18s.
Pascoe initially got involved with the football club as a young player, firstly with the junior club and then later as a senior.
Next year will be the first time Pascoe has coached a senior side, but he has coached the reserves, under 16s and under 18s.
He said coaching the senior side would be slightly different to the reserves and other age groups, with more emphasis on cross training and physical fitness. Also an exciting new addition to the coaching staff is Andrew Rolfs who will be taking charge of the reserves. Rolfs has played for Emerald for the last four years and has a strong coaching background. He previously played with Oakleigh for 10 years before turning to coaching the Oakleigh reserves for three years. Rolfs said he was looking forward to the challenge of coaching the Emerald reserves side.
Moving from the Emerald Junior Football Club, Graeme Steer will coach the under 18s. Unlike the other two coaches Steer didn’t play club football as a kid, but was into triathlons.
However, Steer has plenty of experience coaching football as he has been an assistant coach for the juniors and coached the under 14s last year.
“This is my first time coaching a senior side and I hope we can keep the boys here, we have some really promising young players coming through the junior club, but we tend to loose them to other clubs when they get to this level,” he said.
The three new coaches said with the pre-season starting soon, new players are welcome to enrol for what is expected to be an exciting new season.