AFL Outer-East: Matt Shinners leads Narre Warren into inaugural season
Returning senior coach Matt Shinners said the club will be looking to its next generation as it sets about establishing itself in the newly-created AFL Outer-East competition.
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Returning senior coach Matt Shinners said the club will be looking to its next generation as it sets about establishing itself in the newly-created AFL Outer-East competition.
Shinners returns to the senior job at Kalora Park for the first time in nearly a decade.
Narre Warren is one of seven clubs from the now-defunct South East Football Netball League that will blend with AFL Yarra Ranges clubs in the new competition.
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“We’ve been pretty busy since the start of November,” he said. “We haven’t gone out on a recruiting spree, we’ve got several players training with (VFL’s) Casey and Frankston and we’ll get them back during the course of the season and we have a few training with the (Dandenong) Stingrays,” he said.
“We’re adding a lot of younger players this season and we believe we can develop the kids. If that success comes in a few years time (well and good) but I believe we are going to have a group that will be really competitive.
“We’re not proposing to go out and spend big money on players who aren’t worth it.”
Shinners returns to the senior job for the first time since guiding the Magpies to the 2010 flag.
But in that time he hasn’t been a stranger at Fox Road, coaching the under-19s to back-to-back flags in 2013 and 2014.
He is looking forward to being reunited with some of those flag-winning youngsters.
“Football itself has changed a lot (in the time he’s been away), the philosophy is the same but the game plans and tactics have changed,” he said.
“Half the kids I coached back in 2014 are more mature now and they know what I am about.”
The club has a good relationship with junior football in the region and will be looking to bring nearly a dozen players from the South-East Junior competition into the senior fold.
Former Werribee (VFL) tall Trent Shinners was expected to cross from EFL’s Norwood but has since decided to retire.
Season 2019 will be something of an unknown for clubs but Narre Warren will bring some pretty sold form to the new league having been SEFNL minor premiers last season before a grand final defeat at the hands of Berwick. It also finished runners-up to Berwick in 2017.
The Magpies picked up no fewer than six flags in eight seasons between 2006 and 2013.
“We’re really looking forward to it,” Shinners said. “It’s given our league and our club a lifeline and we can’t wait.”
Narre Warren has been drawn in the league’s Premier Division, along with former SEFNL clubs Berwick, Beaconsfield and Cranbourne, and AFL Yarra Ranges clubs Wandin, Woori Yallock, Olinda Ferny Creek, Upwey Tecoma and Healesville.
Narre will open the AFL Outer East season with a stand-alone round 9 clash at Berwick on Saturday, April 6 before a round 1 match at Olinda Ferny Creek on Saturday, April 13.
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