Sport
‘It’s an absolute honour to coach at this club’: Craig Carley returns as head coach of GV Suns
For the first time in the club’s history the Goulburn Valley Suns will play their football in National Premier League 3 next season and navigating the club through uncharted territory will be a familiar face.
Long-term senior coach Craig Carley has returned to the Suns’ helm after stepping down midway through last season.
The announcement comes following a board overhaul at its annual general meeting on Thursday night.
Former general director Rob Stojanovski steps into the presidency role after some time away, while Shaban Mehmet takes up the vice-presidency after a short hiatus, having previously held several coaching roles at the Suns.
A new board and fresh direction had revitalised his interest in the top job, Carley said, as the club and board look to its future in Victorian football’s third tier.
“It’s really exciting to be back, a new board has come in and it has re-energised my enthusiasm to get back involved with the club, in my opinion it was certainly needed,” Carley said.
“When I sat down and spoke with the new board I was really pleased with the ideas that they want to bring towards the club, making it more of a family, community club.
“It’s an absolute honour to coach at this club again.”
Carley said he was thrilled to be back doing what he loved at a club he hoped he could help “build” back up next year.
“I’m really pleased in the direction that they’re wanting to go, I’m so proud to be back and I’m very grateful to Shepp South when I went there at the back end of last season.
“I’ve got aspirations to coach at the very highest level and to one day be a full-time coach and this is certainly a stepping stone towards that.
“Hopefully we can build, it was obviously a really disappointing year last year, but hopefully we can build and get some stability back to the club and build some really good foundations to get back up the NPL leagues in the next few years.”
Following the Suns’ relegation this season, Carley said he expected the club to learn from what was a challenging year.
The senior team was winless with four draws to show for its nightmarish campaign, one which was hampered by a severe injury crisis.
The Suns coach said the club’s focus on youth and its regional-player base would be crucial to its success next year.
“I need to have a conversation with our current players and work out their intentions,” Carley said.
“We will assess areas we need to improve on — our import positions will be key and that’s something we probably didn’t get right last season.
“We need to aspire to be the best club in the region and I believe the GV Suns are, we need to get the right quality players in and I’ll be speaking to local talent to try and get some local players on board.
“It’s fundamental that a regional-based club has regional-based players, there’s an abundance of talent in the region, we’re expecting our under-21 boys and under-18s to feature next year and Lee did a great job in getting minutes into them at the back end of last year.
“We’ll be looking for them to take the next step.”
For Carley and the board the work begins in earnest with trials for the Suns’ senior and junior sides commencing next week.
Carley said he knew all too well the importance of a solid pre-season.
“Our pre-season last year was a bit disjointed with games being cancelled toward the back-end, a big pre-season is something we’ll be looking to start with and build on, it’s about getting the right personnel in and then building on that,” he said.
“The recent AGM brought new faces and new ideas, hopefully we can refresh and build and that work will reflect on the pitch.”