Southern league: Moorabbin appoints Steve Ralph as new senior coach

The Kangaroos have locked in a three-time Goulburn Valley league premiership player to take them into 2022.

The Moorabbin Kangaroos have named the experienced Steve Ralph as their new senior coach.

It’s a welcome to Moorabbin Kangaroos and Southern league coaching ranks for Steve Ralph.

But it’s hardly a welcome to senior coaching for him.

In fact, he has one of the more impressive football resumes in the SFNL.

In between a spot steering the London Swans in the UK, Ralph has coached the Melbourne Masters team for 12 years.

He’d previously coached at clubs including Nathalia in the Murray league, Marong in the Loddon Valley, and Sunshine Kangaroos and North Sunshine in the Western Region, where he enjoyed premiership success.

As player he figured in three flags at Shepparton United in the strong Goulburn Valley, and one at South Bendigo in the Bendigo league and another at North Sunshine in Western Region, where he finished playing in 2003 at the age of 39.

New Moorabbin mentor Steve Ralph has great playing and coaching experience.

Ralph played a good level of football, even having a run for Carlton Under 19s and in 1987 spending a few months doing pre-season at Essendon under the great Kevin Sheedy.

He never made it at the Blues or the Bombers – “I wasn’t good enough and they had gun sides’’ – but the Essendon experience does make for a few good memories.

“Did the whole thing, trained from October through to February, March when they had to do the chop-off,’’ he said.

“I knew Peter Schokman, who was the strength and conditioning coach at Carlton, and he called Sheedy and told him about me, and Sheedy gave me a buzz and said, yep, come on down.

“He was a hard taskmaster and a bit quirky. He was probably a step ahead of his time, to be honest.’’

Ralph went back to Shepparton United and played in three consecutive premierships.

Kangaroos stalwart Adam Walsh, himself a former coach of the club, alerted Moorabbin to Ralph’s availability for 2022.

They’ve played Masters together for four years and been cricket teammates at Brighton District.

“He was the conduit. He introduced me to the club, and told the club they should talk to me,’’ Ralph said.

As part of the appointment, Walsh agreed to be assistant coach.

Ralph takes over a club that did remarkably well to get on the field this year.

Only a couple of weeks before Round 1 there was a crisis meeting to decide if the Kangaroos could go on.

They ended up with two teams, with former players and officials answering the “call to arms’’.

And the seniors finished the season encouragingly.

“I know they’ve had their issues in the last couple of years, on and off the field,’’ Ralph said.

“But it’s not just Division 4 clubs that have had a tough time. It was all level of footy. That’s just what Covid did.’’

He said it was clear the club had a lot of heart.

“Just with my brief experience with and exposure to committee and players I’m very impressed with the vision they’ve put forward.

“They’re doing things properly. They’ve got money in the bank. They’ve got a good, strong committee and really good leaders.

“They want to take the next step on field now and as a coach, I’ve got to lift our standards and have us try to train and play like a Division 3 or even Division 2 club.

“We’re working pretty hard on the phones to get some good players back and retain players too. The goal is to improve the standard and make sure the players enjoy their footy.’’

Ralph lives at Black Rock and is sales director for Project Clothing.

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