Collingwood turn to Wright in wake of disastrous season

Collingwood Netball have put their faith in the self-described “atypical head coach” Rob Wright for the next two seasons.

New Collingwood netball head coach Rob Wright. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Collingwood have put their faith in the self-described “atypical head coach” Rob Wright for the next two seasons, as the club looks to recover from a disappointing start to Super Netball.

Wright was already working at the Magpies as an assistant and will replace Kristy Keppich-Birrell, whose contract was not renewed after the team crashed to 10 defeats this year to finish second last.

“I think in any year, regardless of how it goes, there’s always good things and you don’t want to throw everything out. But there’s obviously other things that we need to start doing and start doing a whole lot better,” Wright said.

His unorthodox coaching style helped the NSW Swifts reach the grand final twice under his watch, but a shock departure at the end of the 2017 season upset many of his former players.

At the time, Wright said his time as a head coach was over, blaming the increased administrative workload that was drawing him away from spending time developing players.

But a new structure at Collingwood that removes most of the managerial work from his job has enticed Wright back to a head coach position.

“I always said that if you want a manager, I’m not interested because I do my best work on the court rather than in an office,” Wright said.

“When I signed at Collingwood, I signed as assistant, so I was never expecting this to come along. That was certainly never my intention and never Collingwood’s intention, but sometimes things happen … and this was too good to refuse.”

His first task will be assembling next year’s team.

The Magpies have lost veterans Sharni Layton, Erin Bell and Shae Brown to retirement and with the rest of the team out of contract, they “could possibly lose a couple more” players.

Wright said he’ll look to “promote for the future” at the Magpies while hopefully retaining the team’s remaining stars.

The West Coast Fever also received good news yesterday, with centre Verity Charles cleared of any structural knee damage after an ugly collision in Sunday’s loss to the Giants.

“She’s still sore, but we’re hopeful she’ll take part in some part of the finals. But we’ll just have to play it day by day,” said Fever coach Stacey Marinkovich.

Charles will travel with the team to Sydney tomorrow with a late call set to be made on her fitness for Saturday’s major semi-final against the Giants with a home grand final at stake.

The loser will be thrust into a home preliminary final against either the Sunshine Coast Lightning or Queensland Firebirds.