Premier Cricket: star allrounder Evan Gulbis to captain and coach Carlton

With Warren Ayres stepping down, Carlton premiership captain Evan Gulbis has taken over as the Blues’ coach.

When it comes to Evan Gulbis, just say “cc’’.

The former Victorian and Tasmanian all-rounder has been appointed as captain-coach of Carlton following the resignation of head coach Warren Ayres.

BLUES BREAK PREMIERSHIP DROUGHT

CARLTON TAKES NATIONAL T20 CROWN

WARREN AYRES STEPS DOWN

Believing the Blues needed little change to their coaching structure, Gulbis approached the club about adding the coaching role to his captaincy.

It agreed with the approach he outlined.

The appointment will require more long-distance dedication from Gulbis, who lives in Launceston.

Last season he usually flew over to train on Thursdays and returned Saturday nights or Sunday mornings.

He will have a similar schedule next season.

Gulbis will also have a team of four assistant coaches.

But the Blues won’t be altering what has been working.

“It’s more about trying to continue with what Warren was doing rather than go in and mix everything up,’’ Gulbis told Leader.

“We’ve set the club up for success. We didn’t need anyone coming in and changing everything and making us go backwards.

“I think the fact that our bookends won premierships last season — the club had gone 20-plus years without a premiership in any grade and we’ve now won three premierships in the last two seasons — shows we’re doing things right and we’ve got young talent coming through.’’

Carlton celebrates its grand final win over Geelong.

And talent at the top, too. In Premier Cricket, the Victorian Super Slam and the National T20, the Carlton First XI played 31 matches and lost only twice last season.

The Blues crowned it by winning their first flag since 1980-81, defeating Geelong in a remarkable grand final.

Gulbis was man of the match with an innings of 146 not out, to follow a century and six wickets in the preliminary final.

Now comes more responsibility for the 33-year-old.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge of trying to develop some of the younger players so when we’re ready to turn over our First XI we’ve upskilled the young guys and they’re ready to take positions,’’ Gulbis said.

“I don’t think a coaching structure is about who’s there and who’s not there, it’s about creating support and lots of avenues for learning.

“We’ll have more coaches next season than we’ve ever had. The more coaches you have, the more diversity you have, so therefore you’ll touch on more learning opportunities.

“With coaching these days, it’s pretty hard to throw balls for 10 hours because most coaches have full-time jobs. It’s about creating the avenues of communication and then leaving it up to the player to go and work on it. They say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, or become elite. Just because you’re there on a Tuesday or Thursday night for two hours doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to improve. You’ve got to be working on it throughout the week.

“If we can create can learning opportunities on Tuesday, it means they’ve got four days to work on it leading up to the weekend. We’ll try to have Tuesdays as more of a specialist night and get all the assistant coaches and specialist coaches there working individually with our players and having Thursdays more about each team coming together.’’