Williamstown’s new development coach Brett Henderson. 74897 Picture: RIVERINE HERALD
BY MICHAEL ESPOSITO
WILLIAMSTOWN has almost finalised its coaching panel with the appointment of celebrated country footy coach Brett Henderson and former state cricketer Mathew Inness.
Henderson coached Goulburn Valley Football League team Echuca over the past three seasons with the side playing finals each year.
He has also coached country clubs such as Lake Boga, Echuca United and Leeton-Whitton.
Inness will take on the role of high performance manager.
Henderson, a school teacher, will move to Williamstown in mid-January and will teach at Sacred Heart Primary School in Newport.
Henderson’s role will be largely based on developing Williamstown’s younger players.
“I’ve worked pretty closely with a lot of young players, probably in the last four or five years,” he said. “It’s something that I enjoy doing.
He said he was thrilled to finally get a chance to coach at a higher level.
“It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve been kicking around the traps for 15 years coaching so it’s more a case of now or never.”
Henderson said he’ll be “doing most of the learning” working with his coaching colleagues.
“I’ll learn an enormous amount. I just think it will be fantastic being around guys like (head coach) Peter German and Mathew Inness and the other assistant coaches, it’s just a great opportunity.”
Inness is another canny appointment by the Seagulls, who also recently announced the appointments of Andrew Mirams and Marcus Drum.
Inness played cricket for Victoria, Western Australia and Australia A. Since retiring from cricket he worked at East Perth in the WAFL, Western Australia in the NAB U18 AFL Championships and for the past four years has been the head of strength and conditioning for the Western Australian Cricket Association.
Inness is moving to Melbourne to undertake a PhD with Victoria University.
Williamstown Football Manager Chris Dixon said the club was excited about the two new appointments.
“We were never going to rush these critical appointments as we wanted to make sure we got the right people. We couldn’t be happier with Brett and Matt coming on board and we’re looking forward to having them down in Melbourne from January.”
The club is expecting to make one more coaching appointment to complete the panel.
