By MARK HEENAN
EXCLUSIVE
AN Ocean Grove Football Club under-18s triple premiership coach has emerged as a genuine candidate for the club’s vacant senior coaching position.
Matt Tyrrell, 38, who coached the Ocean Grove under-18 team to three flags in a row from 2008 to 2010, admits he is eyeing off the top job.
“I have applied for the Ocean Grove senior coaching role,” said Tyrrell, an Ocean Grove-based electrician.
Tyrrell has spent the last two seasons as ruck coach mentor to key Ocean Grove big man Andrew Jarvis, who won the Grubbers’ senior best-and-fairest award in 2015.
Tyrrell, who played in two senior flags in 2000 and 2001 under four-time Ocean Grove premiership coach Mark Neeld, coached the BFL under-18 Interleague team in 2010.
He worked as an assistant to former Ocean Grove senior coach Cameron McGregor in 2011.
The father-of-three said he was keen to help the Grubbers regain its home grown talent who have left in recent years whom he shared a bond with as the under-18s coach.
Daniel Maloney, Jack Rawlings, Sam Fairway, James McTaggart, Harrison Foott, Corey Walter, Brandon Poulter and Sam Rankin – who all played in the 2014 BFL grand final – are no longer playing at Ocean Grove.
Ex-Grubber gun Andy Higgins crossed to GFL club St Albans this year, while team-mate Aaron O’Callaghan is a playing assistant coach at Geelong West in the GDFL.
Star juniors Kane Reardon and Christian West have not played seniors at Ocean Grove this year.
The 2016 season is the first time since 2010 Ocean Grove has failed to make the BFL senior finals.
The senior Grubber coaching position closes this Friday 19 August, with all written applications emailed to ogfncpresident@gmail.com
Ocean Grove Football Netball Club president Tony Potter conceded a decision to appoint a new senior coach prior to the end of August would be unlikely.
He said the position had attracted wide interest outside the Geelong region.
“We have had a wide range of applicants from all over Victoria,” Potter said.
“The process going for (a new senior coach) is going well, but as you know it is not finished yet.
“I would be reluctant to say how many applicants we have had.
“We are in a fantastic position though … we have had plenty of applicants.”
The panel is expected to meet this week to discuss the vacant senior coaching role.
