Marcus Ashcroft Exclusive | Courtesy of the Courier Mail
ONE of the most exciting things about being entrusted with some of the responsibility of creating a start-up club is the opportunity to recruit the very best people and the satisfaction you feel seeing the pieces of the puzzle come together.
This week we took a giant step forward with three key appointments to our football department.
Our policy has been to go after the very best people available and it should come as no surprise that one of the first places you look is at the AFL clubs who do things best.
Geelong are obviously the benchmark in the competition at the moment which is why we recruited Ken Hinkley to join Guy McKenna as an assistant coach for this season and we have now signed the Cats' high-performance manager Dean Robinson.
Dean, along with current conditioning manager Andrew Weller, will run our fitness department and we are thrilled to have a guy of his experience, having worked at Geelong throughout their premiership years and before that at the NRL's Manly Sea Eagles.
He is renowned for a willingness to think outside the square and is a complete workaholic.
You could call him a bit eccentric but we feel he is a perfect fit for us, as we attempt to transform a list that is predominantly draft-aged boys into AFL-ready men.
Our search for key fitness staff took us all the way to European rugby where we were able to entice Chris Gaviglio to come and join us from Bath RFC.
Chris is one of the very best in the field of strength gains and conditioning where he has honed his craft with Bath RFC for the past six years.
Chris also spent many years at Queensland Academy of Sport in Brisbane. And sometimes you can find the very best people right under your nose.
For us, that person was my old teammate Matthew "Max" Kennedy, who has come on board in the strength and conditioning department and will also assist Bluey with some specialist coaching.
We are also close to filling our coaching roster for next season.
We need three more coaches to join Bluey, Ken and Shaun Hart. We have already made some offers and hope to be able to announce our signings shortly.
