Tara Murray
New North Sunshine coach Andrew Scimone isn’t aiming for finals and premierships next year, he just wants his side to be more competitive.
After just one win in the Western Region Football League division 3 competition this year, which was the club’s first win since 2018, the Roadrunners have had a tough few years on field.
Scimone, who coached the club’s reserves last season, replaces Ange Messina in the coaching hot seat. Messina stood down after two seasons due to other commitments.
“I want to build the club up and look to bring some youth up,” Scimone said.
“We want to be competitive and I’ve already told them that it will be a hard pre-season.
“We’ve got a fair bit of youth coming through in that 19-24 age group. I also want to bring in some culture changes, I’ve been firm with that.”
Scimone is still fairly new to coaching. He had coached Lalor’s under-17s in the Northern Football League, before taking on the reserves role at the Roadrunners this year.
He had signed with the club as a player for 2020, but with COVID-19 and body getting a bit older, he decided coaching was his new pathway.
He still played two reserves games last season, with the side finishing 4-4.
Scimone is the first to admit that he will have a tough time ahead of him. The club finished seven this season, the first time since 2017 they hadn’t finished on the bottom of the ladder.
“I just want to beat the team above us. If we can win three games next season, that will be a win.
“We know that we aren’t going to win every game, we want a more resilient side.
In the past once we were eight to nine goals down, we would drop our heads and lose by 20 goals. If we can reduce the losing margin, that would be really good.”
Scimone said for him he wanted to make sure the club was in a good position in four-five years with the core young list having played plenty of football together.
He said they were talking to a few players about coming across for next season, but the focus was on the existing playing group.
“A few guys might come or go and some might follow Ange to Yarraville.
“We say the merrier down at the club.”
