NFL 2018: George Lattouf named Watsonia’s new senior coach
GEORGE Lattouf hopes the lessons he learned as an assistant coach with West Preston-Lakeside will help drive his new club Watsonia to success.
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GEORGE Lattouf hopes the lessons he learned as an assistant coach with West Preston-Lakeside will help drive his new club Watsonia to success.
After five years with the Roosters, former Thomastown, Kew and Parkside mentor Lattouf has been appointed by the Saints as Jarrad Carey’s senior coaching replacement.
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Lattouf was unveiled by the club on Monday and the 50-year-old has wasted no time getting down to business.
“I have been at West Preston for the last five years and it is like my second home,” he said.
“I learned a lot as a development coach and having a role with (coach) Rob (Maiorana) and the seniors as well.
“The time has come to explore all the learnings I have done at a Division 1 club, explore them at another club.
“Watsonia has a good committee and their under-19s and reserves played finals.
“The seniors didn’t have a good year, but there’s a lot of positive things in their list management and their players.”
Watsonia only won once this year, finishing the Northern Football League Division 2 campaign with a 1-17 record.
But the Saints will retain their place in the second tier in 2019 and Lattouf is determined to get the best out of their existing playing list.
“The next couple of weeks we are going to go through that with the list management,” he said.
“Go through the playing list, making sure we keep everybody there.
“If there’s opportunities where we need to recruit, we’ll look at that as well.
“But it’s important to look at what is inside the footy club and you want to work on that. “Work within, develop and get team success all across the board. That’s what we are looking at at Watsonia.”
Lattouf said the importance of “developing young footballers” and having a “structured footy club” were factors in West Preston-Lakeside’s Division 1 success he wanted to bring to A.K Lines Reserve.
“The most important is just communication. It’s about managing people,” he said.
“I have learned a lot about how to manage people who are diverse and have different types of skills.
“Hopefully I can put all that into my new role at Watsonia.”
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