AFL South hires Shane Morwood to coach the coaches
Former AFL Magpie and four-time Dingley premiership coach Shane Morwood might have stepped down, but he hasn’t been lost to coaching.
Southern
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Shane Morwood stood down as Dingley’s senior coach at the end of last season, with another premiership flag flying at Souter Oval.
He’s coaching again this year, but not a team.
The former AFL Magpie is coaching the coaches.
Morwood has accepted a mentoring role with the AFL Southern Melbourne Outer region, with the aim of “coaching for growth’’.
He did his first session last Monday night with Highett Junior Football Club.
“The idea will be to get to all the junior football clubs in the region – there are 26 of those in the South Metro Junior Football League – the clubs in the Southern Football Netball League and the clubs in the VAFA,’’ Morwood said.
“It came up after the AFL Vic awards night when I was asked if I’d like to have some sort of position that involves getting around to all the clubs and helping the coaches.
“Straight away I was pretty keen to do something like that.’’
It will be an extension of his career: Morwood coaches and mentors staff at two companies attached to the building industry.
He said he had long believed there was a gap between football coaches receiving their accreditation and implementing their learnings.
“They go home with a piece of paper after listening to some great speakers but how do they plan their sessions, how do they plan their game style, what do they do when they have difficulties in dealing with players, how does it all roll out … they need support in those and other areas, and if they get that support, the flow-on affect is that our kids are coached more effectively and we get a better result with each individual child,’’ Morwood said.
“There are other benefits: longevity with coaches because they’ve got a resource they can draw on, better engagement from a club and player perspective, ultimately better people.’’
The 1990 Collingwood premiership player began a course with the Australian Institute of Professional Coaches last year after becoming increasingly interested in the area.
He said sporting organisations and businesses had become more professional and were “ looking for ways to advance their collective results’’.
“Back when I was playing football we were touching on sports psychology, but not such much from a mentor point of view on a consistent basis. Nowadays they get that support. In the corporate world now there’s a great emphasis on coaching people and an interest in their mental health. There is a lot going more direction and structure being put in place to supporting people. You get a healthier person and a better performance. That’s what everyone is looking for.’’
Morwood said the sessions with community clubs would be “very interactive’’. “It’s about them sharing their issues, concerns, problems, whatever they might be, and talking about them,’’ he said. “I share my experience about what they can do to help … we don’t do power-point displays. We have a whiteboard and texta and we talk. The more they ask, the more I’ll talk.’’
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Morwood coached Dingley for nine years and to four premierships before stepping aside for playing assistant Danny Ades.
AFL Southern Melbourne Outer football development manager Gary Brown was behind Morwood’s recruitment for the “coach developer program’’.
“Shane has the innate ability to connect and develop people and to make them better as individuals and to get them to understand the impact they can all have on each other and everyone else around them,’’ Brown said.
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