Tara Murray
New Sydenham Park coach Steve Laurie isn’t shying away from the fact he has big ambitions for the FV state league 1 north-west club.
Laurie was last week appointed coach of the club after it mutually parted ways with Milan Batur the previous week.
Laurie joins the club having spent the past four years at Green Gully and was an assistant coach at the National Premier League until earlier this season.
He will be supported by Tim Paton who was also at the Cavaliers.
Laurie said he was excited by the new challenge.
“I knew some people at the club and they have some loyal supporters,” he said. “I want to bring some success to the club, it would be great.
“There’s more than an appointment on the line, as I’m close to people at the club.”
Laurie said he enjoyed his time at the Cavaliers which was meant to be just to help them avoid relegation but turned into several years at the club.
He had previously taken Geelong to a title.
“That chapter has closed,” he said of Green Gully. “I’m looking forward to the new one.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on them before the appointment. I know there’s some quality in the squad.
“I saw that first hand last night [Tuesday] first hand and they’re definitely in the mix for a reason.”
The Reds sit in sixth spot at the halfway point of the season, eight points off first and three points behind second.
The Reds have just one point out of their last three matches.
Having just missed out on promotion the past couple of seasons, the Reds again set the target to finally break through.
Laurie said it was something that he was focused on doing.
“Being around the mark doesn’t work for me,” he said. “That’s not the way I’ve done things.
“We need to get promoted. We’re still in the window this year and I want to get promotion this year and I’ve been clear with that and there’s no reason why we can’t do it.”
There was a mid season bye for the competition on the weekend.
Laurie said it came at a perfect time for him to allow him extra time to get prepared ahead of his first match in charge.
“We have a couple of sessions this week to get to know them,” he said. “I stayed late on Tuesday night.
“We’ll have a sit down feed at the club on Thursday and I can keep getting to know them.
“We won’t have the weekend off. We will be doing some training or play a game to get ready to play FC Clifton.
“They are one of the toughest teams and they will come hard for us. We will be up and about for it,”
