NEW Peel Thunder coach Trevor Williams is in it for the long haul and wants to develop a young squad and create a culture that has potential recruits knocking down the door to come to Mandurah.
Williams has returned to Peel Thunder, where he coached the colts to premiership triumphs in 2004 and 05, after a stint coaching the WA State 16s and it's fair to say a fair bit has changed in his time away.
He has taken over when the club has finally been buoyed by the news of the Rushton Park (now Bendigo Bank Stadium) redevelopment that will soon have the Thunder's facilities the envy of all other WAFL clubs.
However, that will all be built during the 2010 season making training and game days interesting for Williams and his team, but it will hold the club's future secure for as long as anyone can foresee.
"There will be some short-term pain and there is a big hole in the ground right now, so we are past the point of no return with it," Williams said.
"It will be a challenge for the playing group and the club this year, there's no doubt about that, but next year we will see the rewards of it with the brand new facility. There were a lot of cynics and sceptics about it ever happening, but it's now demolished and it's happening, so it's very positive for the club."
The other challenge has been putting together a squad that can be competitive and the club appears to have done as well as possible despite the losses of Simon Rosa, Luke Hammond, Ben Howlett, Kane Bloxsidge, Kain Robins, Damien Lock and Zac Beeck.
Clayton Collard and Johnny Bennell arrive to provide plenty of electricity and skill, Daniel Murray will lead the ruck along with Jacob Williams and Brendon Jones, pictured, who arrives from Perth to lead the midfield.
Jones played 101 games with Perth and won the 2008 fairest and best award. He's been one of the best ball-winners in the WAFL competition the last three years and now Williams is hoping he can lead Peel's young on-ball division.
The new coach is also hoping players he had in his colts team like Matt Battye, Rory O'Brien and Danny Chartres can help lead the way.
"We have put a lot of responsibility on Brendon's shoulders and that's not really by choice, it's just the situation we've now found ourselves in. Losing Rosa and Hammond from our midfield leaves a real hole in experience and we couldn’t sign any others that we would have liked to," he said.
"That will now make it a challenging season for Brendon because he will attract a lot of attention from the opposition, but he's already shown the great leadership qualities he possesses.
"They have all matured into terrific young men and footballers. Guys like Battye, Chartres and Rory O'Brien have all played 60 or 70 games now, and have proven themselves to be quality league footballers, and they now need to lead the way for this club going forward and they are happy with that challenge."
Player retention is an area that Williams has identified as a clear problem at the Thunder and it's one that he is determined to fix in his time as coach.
"There has been a lot of changes at the club since I was last here. On the playing side, the squad has turned over a fair bit and there's only about 10 players left from the colts teams that I coached, all the others have either moved on with their football or aren’t playing at all," Williams said.
"That's probably the most noticeable thing, just the turnover in the playing group. That has been Peel's Achilles heel for a long time now, for whatever reason the club has never been able to get a group of players to stick around together. That is one of our goals now. We want to bring players in who are keen to stay and see things through."
Peel will certainly be the youngest team in the competition in 2010 and Williams is prepared to give chances to a host of developing young players in order to build towards future success.
"The most obvious thing about our group is that it is very young. Our average age is 20.8 years and it's a group we want to keep together now and build up over the next couple of years. We've got some good boys coming up from our colts and they've all worked hard over the pre-season, and should receive some opportunities at league level at some point," he said.
"Physically they might not be quite ready, but they will receive a chance to show what they can do. We haven’t recruited vastly for obvious reasons and to be honest there's not a lot of intent on players to come to Peel right now, but we have to create a culture that does attract quality players."
