Local footy: EDFL club Greenvale appoints Darren Bewick as coach
EDFL power Greenvale has made a high-profile coaching appointment for next year, securing the services of a two-time AFL premiership player.
Local Footy
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Dual Essendon premiership player Darren Bewick will lead Greenvale next season in a coaching coup for the top-flight club.
The former AFL goalsneak brings almost two decades of coaching experience to the Essendon District Football Premier Division outfit.
Bewick has been calling the shots at Eastern Ranges in the NAB League since 2010 but stepped aside following a revamp of the elite under-age competition, with coaches to go full-time from next year under the new model.
The 53-year-old works at Rowville Secondary College and is director of its football coaching program.
Bewick steered the Ranges to the 2013 premiership, grand final appearances in 2015 and 2019 and was awarded the NAB League’s Coach of the Year twice.
After retiring in 2000, he called the shots at Gippsland Power for two seasons before heading up the football program at the Northern Territory Institute of Sport for two years.
He then spent five seasons as an assistant coach at North Melbourne before taking over at the Ranges.
As a player, Bewick booted 332 goals from 238 games and featured in Essendon’s 1993 and 2000 flags.
The Perth-born forward also represented Western Australia six times.
Greenvale president Bruce Kent said Bewick arrived with “enormous experience”.
“We’re pretty pleased to get him,” Kent said.
“He was obviously a very talented player and he’s got such a good coaching record.”
Kent said Bewick’s ability to develop young talent was a key factor in his appointment.
Greenvale has one of the strongest junior set-ups in the EDFL, while the salary cap has been slashed to $100,000 next year, increasing clubs’ reliance on homegrown players.
“If you look at the transition over the last five or six years (with the introduction of player points and salary caps), especially some of the larger clubs like Aberfeldie and ourselves, we have less players coming to us, a greater proportion of our juniors to develop,” Kent said.
“We think we’ve always had the blend right. We’ve never been a club that has loaded up our senior team up (with recruits).
“I think we’ve still got the lowest number of (player) points in the EDFL, which means we’ve basically got the most homegrown products.
“We think we’re getting a terrific coach, but a coach with a unique ability to develop young men into top-class footballers, to get the very best out of them.
“We’re confident this will allow us to get ahead and go on to bigger and better things.”
Greenvale missed Premier Division finals in 2019, finishing fifth, with its last premiership coming in 2013.
Kent said there had been no movement of note in the playing ranks and expected a similar team to be rolled out next season.
“History tells us that you always lose somebody somewhere…but our kids have been very loyal to us,” he said.
“We’ve just got to hope that some of our better players don’t get injured. Addam Maric on his day is the best player in the league, but he’s had a couple of years of injuries, so we’re hoping he and others will be completely injury-free next year, and that will make a huge difference.”
Bewick is set to lock horns with premiership teammate Paul Barnard, who will coach Essendon Doutta Stars next season.
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