EFNL 2022: How incoming Nunawading coach Frank Salanitri hopes turn club’s fortunes around

Nunawading weathered a winless season in the EFNL’s Division 4 this year. Here’s how the new coach hopes to turn the club’s fortunes around.

Incoming Nunawading coach Frank Salanitri will turn his attention to recruiting as he looks to lift the battling club up the ladder next season.

The recently-unveiled Salanitri returns for a second stint at the helm having steered the Lions from 2012 to 2013 – overseeing the club’s last finals appearance a decade ago.

He replaces outgoing co-coaches Ryan Dobson and Jeff Gallagher, making the move from VAFA club Manningham Cobras after a five-year stretch which took in two grand finals and two division promotions.

He said an opportunity to return to Koonung Reserve proved too good to refuse.

Frank Salanitri last led Nunawading in 2013.

“I’d been in the Amateurs for the past five years, and it was just a passing-by conversation I’d had with a mate of mine,” Salanitri said.

“I just thought this might be a good opportunity to come back home to where it all started to see if we can do something.

“Speaking to a few players and so forth, it just snowballed from there.”

The Lions endured their fourth winless campaign in six seasons this year – a trend the new coach is hellbent on curbing.

He’s expecting an active off-season of recruiting, having watched this year’s Division 4 decider between Silvan and Surrey Park to gauge the difference.

“It does come back to recruiting and it comes back to getting blokes that want to be competitive,” Salanitri said.

“This is my coaching philosophy – I’m not coaching for a good time, I’m coaching to win games of footy and to help a club, because at the end of the day you’re representing a club.

“You’ve got to have players that don’t like losing, that are super-competitive but are controlled at the same time.

“Having gone to the (Division 4) grand final, it gave me a good indication that I don’t need to see anyone else, just the two top teams, and see how far off we are.

“The big emphasis for me is to build a really strong spine and then we can go from there.”

Nunawading's Jordan Winter. Picture: Josie Hayden

Nunawading finished last with an average losing margin of 100 points from its 16 matches, and despite the gap on its rivals, Salanitri is optimistic of improvement.

“A pass point for me is knocking on the door of finals to be honest … we can only worry about what we do but if we get the right people in and we’ve got the right attitude, there’s no reason why we can’t turn it around quickly,” Salanitri said.

“You’ve got to make the place a place (the opposition) aren’t happy to come to … there’s 44 blokes that represent the footy club each week, don’t worry about recruits, every player needs to improve one per cent and if we can improve on the existing list, that’s a 44 per cent improvement before the recruits come in.”