Sport
Taking the Purple reigns: Glenn Boyd and Ryan Butler sign on to coach Nathalia in 2023
Two new faces will be at Nathalia’s helm in 2023, with Ryan Butler and Glenn Boyd signing on as senior co-coaches.
The two are well known at Purpleland: Butler, a multiple premiership-player at Nathalia, returns after a year at Strathmerton, while Boyd steps into the senior coaching role after wearing the assistant hat for the Purples last season.
After an illustrious career, including a stint at Casey Demons and with Glen Eira in the VAFA in the early 2000s, Boyd said he was thrilled to take on a senior coaching role for the very first time.
“I’m very excited. Obviously I was there last year as an assistant and I really enjoyed my time at the club,” he said.
“I’ve been around footy for a long time, I’ve been playing for 20-odd years. The guys around the club are really good quality people and it’s less daunting when you’ve been there a while and have gotten to know everyone.”
Boyd said whether he would take to the field nect year remained up in the air, but after 35 goals in 10 games last season, many will be hoping to see him pull the boots on.
Nevertheless, coaching from the field this year will be his counterpart Butler, whose experience will bolster Nathalia’s stocks around the ground.
“Because we’re both business owners, that will help us share the role. I haven’t see him play yet but by all accounts he’s a quality player and obviously with some fantastic achievements,” Boyd said of his co-coach.
A topsy-turvy season for Nathalia last year had it miss out on finals by the skin of its teeth, as the Purples finished in seventh and just four points shy of a Murray League finals spot.
As far as next season’s goals, Boyd said getting his young side back into finals contention would be an obvious focus, along with an emphasis on an attacking style of footy.
“We haven’t formally laid out any goals but in the back of my mind we’ll definitely be targeting finals,” he said.
“We’ll be attacking. I was pretty happy with our back line last year. We’ll be looking to transfer our defensive game into a strong offense and look to move the ball a lot quicker.
“There’s some great kids coming through, a lot of top-age and some bottom-agers as well. It’s really encouraging to see that the bottom-agers are just as good as some of the top-age kids.
“It’ll be pretty exciting to see them develop.”