Premier Cricket: Matthew Love jumps at chance to become Greenvale Kangaroos’ new coach
MATTHEW Love says he will draw on the wisdom of premiership coach Mick O’Sullivan after being appointed as Greenvale Kangaroos new mentor.
North West
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MATTHEW Love says he will draw on the wisdom of premiership coach Mick O’Sullivan after being appointed as Greenvale Kangaroos new mentor.
Fitzroy-Doncaster premiership coach O’Sullivan was involved at Footscray and North Melbourne during Love’s playing career and has steered the Lions to the past three Premier Cricket grand finals.
Love, who has joined the Roos from Sub-District club Yarraville, said his experience working with O’Sullivan would be invaluable as he takes the next step in his coaching career.
“I have had experience in captaining at Premier level at Footscray for three years under Mick O’Sullivan,” Love said.
“Obviously got to take out the best parts of coaches like Mick O’Sullivan, who was a big role model for me.
“It will be great when we come up against Fitzroy Doncaster.”
Love said he had “stayed in touch” with O’Sullivan since their time together as captain and coach.
“He was a big part of getting me back to North Melbourne originally after being at Footscray together,” he said.
“Mick is a fantastic coach and a good friend of mine.”
The 39-year-old has churned out 1709 runs for Yarraville in the past two seasons and said he was excited by the challenge of taking on the state’s best bowlers again.
His last season in Premier Cricket was 2012-13, when he compiled 601 runs for North Melbourne before its merger with Greenvale.
“The last couple of years I have hit the ball as good as I ever have,” Love said.
“I can’t see any reason why I can’t continue that, make some runs and be of importance for the First XI.”
Love will leave a considerable hole in the Eagles’ batting line-up after leading them to North-West group finals in 2017-18.
“It was definitely hard to leave but the weight of the opportunity to come out to Greenvale outweighed everything,” he said.
He is under no illusions about the task confronting him to build the Roos into a regular finals contender.
Greenvale has languished at the bottom of the Premier table in recent seasons and finished 18th last summer with two wins.
Love, who has succeeded Jarrod Leggett as coach, said any captaincy decisions would be made closer to the start of his first season in charge.
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