MURRABIT Football Netball Club has extended senior coach Mick O’Toole’s tenure into a fourth year as the club show faith in him as the man to lead their young side back up the ladder.
“It’s going to be a challenge, but I’m looking forward to it,” O’Toole said.
O’Toole will be sole coach for the first time since the 2020 COVID-destroyed season, with joint coach Leigh Millard departing the club.
“Leigh has had a huge influence on the club – he’s a very organised person and will be missed,” O’Toole said.
The pair have led the Blues to a 2-11 season so far, but O’Toole believes he is beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
“There’s a fair few young blokes who have stood up this year and their development is going well.
“Our game plan is beginning to work, and were all looking forward to seeing if we can improve on it.
“I think our biggest issue is we’ve just had no luck with injury and COVID and haven’t been able to get our full-strength team on the ground.”
After what will be consecutive bottom-three finishes, O’Toole is looking to implement a more aggressive game plan under his singular leadership next season.
“We’re going to fasten our game up a lot more,” he said.
“It will be a quicker brand of footy because, at the moment, we’re sort of stuck between two ways – if we start struggling in a match, we seem to go defensive and slow the game down.”
Murrabit will face Ultima, Macorna and Hay in their final three games this season and, while the focus is still on securing much-needed victories to avoid the wooden spoon, O’Toole already has one eye on next year.
“Obviously, we want to finish on a positive note, and we think we’ve got three winnable games to kick-start us into next season.
“We’ve pretty much signed our playing group up from this season already, and we’ve started recruiting also.
“We’ve spoken to six or seven blokes who could jump on board next year.
“A couple of blokes are waiting for finals – we haven’t had meetings with them yet, but have been in contact and touched base – but they all seem pretty positive at this stage.”
