Mornington Peninsula Cricket Association: Carrum set for success under Mark Cooper
Mark Cooper is one of local cricket’s most successful captain-coaches, winning seven premierships. Now he’s more excited than ever after taking the reins at Carrum in the Mornington Peninsula association.
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Mark Cooper loves coaching.
More to the point, he loves coaching premierships.
And he’s been darn good at it, too, lifting premierships cups at Cranbourne, Cardinia, Langwarrin and Koo Wee Rup.
At 41, Cooper is a seven-time premiership coach.
He could be dubbed Cups King Cooper.
He knows what works and what doesn’t, he’s big on developing youth and he’s always led from the front as a prolific scoring opening batsman.
Now for Cooper’s next challenge…
He’s back in the Mornington Peninsula Cricket Association, as captain-coach of Carrum in the third-tier District competition.
With two First XI premierships since joining the MPCA in 1999, the Lions are hungry for success.
“That was their pitch to me…they want it (success) but they just don’t really know how,’’ Cooper said.
“They are in an area that used to be quite an old area. And now it’s rejuvenated with Patterson Lakes exploding with population, (and) they are probably on the brink of going, ‘if we get things right we can probably make a really good shift in the next five years to becoming a pretty strong club in the area’.’’
Keen for sustained success, Carrum’s plan is to develop from within and nurture its young talent so they can lead the club into the future.
“We’re not looking to go out and recruit,’’ Cooper said.
“It suited me a hundred per cent. I didn’t want to be ringing players, ‘what are you doing?’…the old cold calling and that sort of stuff. I’m not really interested in that to be honest.
“So that really interested me.’’
Carrum underperformed last season, finishing second bottom, despite having the competition’s leading run scorer Shaun Foster (473 runs) and one of the top all-rounders, Jake D’Atri (276 runs and 19 wickets).
The Lions’ lack of success was even more puzzling considering they also had the talented Rory Brown, Corey Hand, Cory Foster and Campbell Ak.
Cooper says all players are staying on, while the club hopes to regain Hayden Moulton and Sean Fisher.
Cooper joins Carrum after coaching Koo Wee Rup to three flags in a spectacular four-season stint in the West Gippsland association.
His own stats were stunning at Koowey: 3252 runs, at 54.20, including seven centuries. He also took 126 wickets, at 15.8, with his leg-spin.
“I was kind of feeling like it was at the end at Koowey in terms of motivation as a coach,’’ Cooper said.
“I’d done it for four years and we’d achieved three out of four flags, and our other teams won flags last year as well.
“It was kind of, do I have the fire in the belly to still continue to try and improve as a player and as a coach by experiencing something different, maybe a new challenge?’’
He said Carrum was a good job to take on.
“That really brought a real challenge for me, a low scenario, not already a finals made team, it’s actually starting a fair way back,’’ he said.
Cooper said the goals this season at Carrum were to implement structures and win games.
“It’s kind of a bit of both,’’ he said.
“A few of the players wanted the finals experience probably more now and then a few maybe with the more visionary sense wanted structures in place to have success in the future, and more sustained success.
“So it was a bit of both and then I wanted to be somewhere in the middle.
“You are in an industry where it is around wins and losses but really in the background work it’s a fair bit more than that. You want to be recognized for more than just the wins and losses in your ones team.’’
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