Friday 3 September 2010
Broadbeach coach Adrian Smith has announced his retirement from the State League club.
Smith was in charge of the Cats for two seasons, rebuilding with a very young list and appearing to make significant headway this year, before a late season fadeout saw the team slide to ninth position.
Prior to taking on the senior job, Smith coached the Broadbeach Under 18s to a grand final.
“The reality is that whilst we have enjoyed greater success this year in terms of games won, our position on the ladder has slipped, which is disappointing. This says a lot about the evenness of the competition,” Smith said.
Citing ongoing opportunities within the education department and outside football, Smith leaves the job with a belief that there is unfinished business and in the knowledge that Broadbeach have some great years ahead.
“The club is blessed with a huge list of talented young players including our juniors where five players of the Under 16 team are State players this year including the State captain,” he said.
“At Under 18 level, we had four players in the State team, including the captain, with a couple more unlucky not to get a call up.
“Many times throughout the year, the average age of our senior team was under 21, and that was a team that included veteran full forward Korey Fulton.”
Smith is hopeful that depth of young playing talent will form the basis of successful teams.
“If the club can add some experienced key players to the existing young talent pool, there is no reason why Broadbeach can’t be a dominant force in the QAFL in the years ahead,” Smith said.
“Broady’s situation isn’t unlike a Carlton, Melbourne or a Richmond where these clubs took their medicine in terms of recruiting and developed a young playing list to a stage where they are now competitive.
“When these young players chalk up 40 to 50 senior games, it all begins to click, and I think that is what we will see here.”
While disappointed with the club’s final position on the ladder, president Paul Rolfe is optimistic that a golden era for the club is around the corner.
“We really wanted to play finals football this year and in that regard we have come up short,” Rolfe said. “Injury, suspension and player unavailability have certainly hurt us, but at least that gave us an opportunity to blood our younger players where we had many Under 18 players playing senior football continuously throughout the year.
“Adam Mckenzie, Joel Wilkinson, Jackson Rolfe, Ryan Bower, Sam Robertson and James Christie were just a few under age players that played consistently good footy throughout the year and these players are our future.
“We are going through a restructuring period at the club at the moment and that will include the setting up a football committee that will be responsible for the future direction of the Football Department in terms of recruiting, coaching support and club culture.
“At the moment we have recruited a committee of successful ‘football minds’ which includes significant AFL experience.
“On behalf of the Board of Management, we would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Adrian for his services to the club over the past years. We wish him will in his future endeavours and look forward to him being a regular at the Broadbeach Football Club in years to come.”
