Weekly Times | BAIRNSDALE has appointed North Melbourne premiership player Stuart Anderson as its senior coach for next season.
Anderson, who was previously an assistant coach at another Gippsland league club, Sale, spent a year as an assistant coach with TAC Cup side Gippsland Power last season before joining VFL outfit Box Hill Hawks as a senior assistant coach this year.
Originally from Sale, Anderson played 70 AFL games for North Melbourne and Fremantle, including the 1996 premiership.
Anderson is moving to East Gippsland for work opportunities and started looking at football roles in the area. Bairnsdale has been on the hunt for a new coach to take over from Shaun Mooney.
“It just seemed a really good marriage between the two,” Anderson said.
“A lot of work is based in the east Gippsland area so I would’ve been spending a lot of time down there as well, and I always intended to be involved in a football club as a coach and it’s all fallen together pretty well.”
Anderson said he planned to appoint a playing assistant coach. He said the club would focus on keeping its existing talent and “topping up with players we feel that can take us to the finals and ultimately a premiership”.
It was a sentiment echoed by club president Richard Evans.
“We see recruiting of a couple of A-grade players and the retention of the likes of Gibbsy (James Gibbs) and our really good juniors that we can be playing off in the finals next year,” Evans said.
Bairnsdale will play its final match of the Gippsland league season tomorrow against Moe.
