How Victorian Premier club Greenvale Kangaroos is starting over after horror 22-23 season, player exodus
The vast majority of Greenvale Kangaroos’ best players have left the club after a season of tumult and too many losses. PAUL AMY finds out what happened and how Ashley Cavigan is trying to rebuild.
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The Victorian Premier Cricket transfer list was last refreshed in February.
When it is updated for the 2023-24 season, the initials “GK’’ will be prominent on the “from’’ table; a lot of players are going from Greenvale Kangaroos to other clubs.
In fact, the Kangaroos have suffered such an exodus that their new director of cricket, Ashley Cavigan, says they’ve been left to build from “ground zero’’.
Most of the first XI team has moved on in the wake of the committee’s decision to let go senior coach Damian Shanahan.
In February, players had threatened to stay off the ground unless Shanahan was given another contract.
He had been there for three years.
Disenchanted with president Bruce Kent and the committee, the players demanded Cricket Victoria conduct a review of the Kangaroos, formed in 2013 when District/Premier pillar North Melbourne merged with community club Greenvale.
They spoke of a “general toxic culture’’ and pointed out the Kangas had had eight coaches in 10 years.
In other words, they’d been about as secure as a hut in a hurricane.
Cricket Victoria stayed out of the conflict, with CEO Nick Cummins telling CODE Sports at the time: “It’s not our area of jurisdiction to resolve internal club disputes.’’
But he said Greenvale’s presence in the fast-growing northwest of Melbourne was “strategically very important’’ to Victorian cricket.
In the past month or so, the Kangaroos have announced four additions to their coaching panel (leaving some Premier Cricket followers to conclude they have more coaches than players).
Justin Galeotti, back in Melbourne after a stint in Tasmania, has been recruited to captain the firsts but no other signings have been confirmed.
Cavigan says the Kangaroos are talking to prospective recruits and have fingers crossed a few will commit in the next month or so.
“They’re close. No high profiles or anything like that. We’re not chasing big names or throwing cash around. That’s not the strategy … it’s not a just-throw-money-at-it solution,’’ he says.
Cavigan acknowledges recruiting is a “hard sell’’ given the instability of a club that has bumped along the bottom rungs of the ladder for a decade and had its relevance questioned by other Premier affiliates.
The departures since the end of last season prompted one senior Premier player to message CODE Sports and describe Greenvale Kangaroos as an “absolute basket case’’.
In 2022-23, Greenvale had a wooden spoon to stir.
In 2021-22 it was 16th out of 18 teams.
It was also 16th in 2020-21.
The Kangaroos have finished in the bottom three in every season since 2013-14.
Cavigan, who will oversee coach Sunny Fernando and his assistants, says Greenvale Kangaroos have the feel of a “start-up’’ club after losing most of the top team.
“There are opportunities, it’s a new, young player list, we have a good coaching group and great facilities. The only way is up,’’ he says.
“We’re trying to get up a club that garners respect and gives everyone who lives in our region and everyone coming from the country into Melbourne … a reason to turn left and drive into our driveway, not go past.
“That’s front and centre for us as a coaching team. We feel like we’re starting from ground zero. Every session counts. We’re going to have 50, 60 kids through in the next few weeks and I want every single parent and kid going back to their home club saying, ‘They’re well organised, well run, there’s quality coaching’.’’
Cavigan, a former head coach of Essendon and a player at Carlton and Fitzroy-Doncaster, says he went into the position with “eyes wide open’’.
Given the players’ obvious support for Shanahan and disdain for the committee, he was expecting “some player turnover’’.
But the extent of the losses surprised him.
“At the end of the day I said to the club, ‘Look, from my point of view the only way to do this is to build it from the ground up, lay strong foundations’.
“We’ve got to get good young talent into the place, give them a great environment, give them good coaching and if we get that part right those guys will form friendships and mateships.
“They’ll stick together and they’ll enjoy their cricket and it won’t be a revolving door of talent, which I think it’s been probably since the club’s inception.
“If you go through some of the guys playing Premier Cricket right now, they may have started at the Kangas and they’re not there any more. They’re the questions I was really interested in and then trying to make sure we get the environment right so it can change.
“The easy part is the vision and the plan. Now it’s about executing it.’’
Aside from Cavigan and Fernando, the Kangaroos have brought in former Ryder Medal champion Mick Allen as specialist batting and wicketkeeping coach; Gavin Mackay as head of recruiting and pathway development; Janaka Siriwardana as development coach; and Chris Milne as head of performance mindset and wellbeing.
Cavigan says he’s pleased with the coaching structure.
“We were always going to be coach heavy,’’ he says.
“That was part of the strategy, because we’ve really got to get the environment right. We know it’s taken a massive hit. We know we’ve got to get young talent in and we’ve got to keep it. That’s where a lot of our focus and energy will go.
“It’s a big part of what we’re trying to achieve in year one. It’s going to be a marathon, so year one will be, get the structure we want, get some guys settled in their roles, make it an inclusive place, a happy place.
“Premier Cricket is pretty tough. The players give up a fair bit, sacrifice a fair bit. If they’re not enjoying their surroundings, they’re not going to play good cricket.’’
Cavigan says Galeotti is the right person to lead the first XI through what will be a tough 2023-24 season.
The right-hander played 34 matches for Essendon before crossing to Tasmania.
He’s committed to Greenvale for three years.
“He’s a ripper. He’s a really good character and good bloke, a great competitor, the sort of leader we need right now,’’ Cavigan says.
The Kangaroos have started trials for the Under 16 Dowling Shield, with Cavigan saying the level of talent “looks really good’’.
The same applies to the Under 18s, he says.
“The bottom-end is going to come first,’’ Cavigan says. “Get a strong Dowling program, get some talent on the list, same with our 18s, and that will flow into our threes and fours.
“We expect our improvement to come from our lower grades first and then hopefully in the not-too-distant future, because we’ve got our foundation right and we’ve got our structure right, we can start looking to add some top-end talent.
“In some ways our hand has been forced. Looking at the list, say before the last game of last season, yeah, there are certainly some players on there you would have liked to have kept. But without being disrespectful, it was going to be a major rebuild anyway.
“How many games has the club won in the last three years? Two or three a year? Looking at individual numbers, was continual improvement there on an individual basis? Where was the improvement coming from?
“It was going to need massive scrutiny anyway. Would we have preferred a lot of those guys stay? Absolutely. We wanted everyone to stay, and everyone was given that opportunity at individual meetings.
“We had a collective meeting as well. But to be honest I think the horse had bolted. By the time we got a few coaches in place, I think those guys were a fair way down the track and halfway out the door.
“Disappointing but we’ve got heaps of young kids keen to have a crack.’’
Cavigan acknowledges there will be some testing times for the Kangaroos’ top team next season.
It will have “a couple of really good days and some really challenging days’’.
“We’re going to be well-planned for it. We know we’ve taken a big hit in terms of player turnover so we’ll put as much support around the boys as we can,’’ he says.
“We’re certainly going to be doing all we can to be as competitive as we can.’’
Kent has been president of the club since the merger.
He was also the founding president of Greenvale Cricket Club when it was formed in 1992 (Greenvale continues to operate teams in the Victorian Turf Cricket Association).
Kent has also been president of the Greenvale Sports Club since 1993 and president of Greenvale Football Club since 1998.
Cavigan says he will act as a conduit between the administration and the coaches and players.
The club “desperately needs it’’, he says.
“The massive feedback from the players who left and the players who were unhappy was … they had all their focus on, and all their issues centred around, off-field stuff.
“To be honest, it was all about the bullshit going on off the ground.
“Why do they feel as though if the president doesn’t wear a polo shirt to the ground on a Saturday, that’s somehow not good enough?’’
Cavigan says he accepted his position as director of cricket on the basis he would have the power to make all cricket decisions.
He didn’t want to be involved at a club “where the president wants to be a selector or he wants to be a recruiter’’.
“I want a president who understands, ‘Let’s get a team of coaches together and trust them to do their jobs’.
“Bruce has got his own style. We’re still getting to know each other but what he has done so far is been a man of his word. Everything we discussed and everything we agreed on, has taken place.’’
Although Cavigan says the Kangaroos are starting a “marathon’’, he knows they do not have the luxury of time.
The club was formed 10 years ago.
It has excellent facilities (and more are being built) and established a women’s section.
But the Kangaroos have achieved little on the ground.
“It’s going to take a couple of years but by the same token it can’t be a seven-year plan,’’ Cavigan says.
“I can’t say to a Bernie Kelly (first XI player), ‘Keep playing with us, keep training hard, we’re going to be OK in seven years’.
“It’s not going to happen next season but we need to work really hard to make it happen as quickly as we can, because the club can be a success story for the area and the competition. It’s a sleeping giant.’’
Originally published as How Victorian Premier club Greenvale Kangaroos is starting over after horror 22-23 season, player exodus
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