Greensborough re-sign Mick Harford, begin salary cap discussions
Greensborough has locked in Mick Harford for 2021, the respected coach confident all the hard work his club has put in since 2019’s grand final heartbreak can translate to 2021.
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Greensborough coach Mick Harford is adamant the club’s hard work on and off the field won’t go to waste during the cancelled season.
The Borough mentor has re-signed for 2021, taking the reins for a fourth year, and hopes the club can pick up where it left off when the Northern Football League season was cancelled.
“We were ready to go, it was the night before our first practice match against Norwood and they pulled out and we didn’t know why,” he said.
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“We played an intra-club on the Saturday morning and it hit the fan on the Sunday.
“It’s been really weird that we did all that work, got ourselves prepared, and then next thing you know it’s August and we haven’t been back.
“We were all planned and ready to go for this year, so hopefully it copies over for the next.”
One big change from 2020 will be a 50 per cent cut to the Division 1 salary cap.
Top flight clubs will be limited to $100,000 in 2021 but Harford was confident his tight-knit playing group would stick together.
“The salary cap changes are pretty significant and I don’t know what impact that will have on guys choosing to work on Saturday,” he said.
“Obviously, we’d like to keep everyone that we had because we’d spent a long time building our list, having a mixture of experience and top-end quality and kids coming through from our 19s.
“The great thing about the boys is they’re a really tight bunch.”
Harford is confident reigning Rosbrook Medallist Tom Bell will recommit as well.
“They’re really good mates off the field and Tom has fitted into that really well.
“I don’t know how it will land but I know they’re pretty thick.”
After dominating much of 2019, Greensborough suffered a tough grand final loss to West Preston-Lakeside.
Star midfielder Charlie Molyneux returned to South Australia over summer, while Fletcher McIvor (Heidelberg) and James McCubbin (Mitcham) arrived and Nathan Hrovat named the Borough as his VFL affiliate.
Despite the cancelled season, Harford said last year’s grand final loss would stick with his players into 2021.
“Those things never disappear,” he said.
“I remember playing in a losing grand final in 1996 and that still grates at me even now.
“I think they’re a really motivated group anyway and this an extra motivation based on half an hour that didn’t go our way.
“As I said to them after the grand final, nothing’s broken, we just had a bad half an hour.
“The system is good, the people are good, we can keep learning from the things that didn’t work and we’ll keep getting better.”