Senior Coaches named for Representative Round

The AFL Hunter Central Coast has named their two senior representative coaches ahead of next month’s battle against the South Coast.

AFL Hunter Central Coast competition co-ordinator Joshua Horvath has confirmed that the home league’s men’s line-up will be coached by Nathan Harkness and assisted by Gary Huglin (Warners Bay) while the women’s side will be coached by Nadene McBride (Singleton).

Harkness is no stranger to representative footy having co-coached the league to a dominant 12.16 (88) to 6.11 (47) win over the South Coast at home in 2019.

The returning coach is now in the box seat to claim a 2-0 winning record as a representative coach.

His priority is to continued improvement for the league’s top talents.

“This appointment means I get an opportunity to coach the top players in our league,” Harkness explained.

“It also gives me another coaching challenge which I think can only make me a better coach and leader.”

The league has since faced a 12.9 (81) to 7.6 (48) defeat to the South Coast when the clash was held in Wollongong in 2021.

Despite a short time frame to prepare for the July 1 match-up, Harkness hopes player availability will enable the league’s chances of producing a quality side.

“Ideally, it would be fantastic to have all players available but I fully understand that this is probably not going to be the case,” he added.

“Thats why I will try and select young keen players that really want to play rep footy.

Nathan Harkness is currently the Men’s Cup coach for Warners Bay.

“There are going to be players injured or going away but I think the squad that will be released will have a good balance of experience and youth.”

Harkness’ greatest satisfaction as a coach is seeing players enhance their fitness, health and football ability.

Players nominated for the representative training sessions can expect some free flowing footy in the lead up to the match.

“It’s just a great opportunity to get our best players together and possibly create relationships within the league that maybe wouldn’t normally happen,” he concluded.

MEANWHILE the AFL Hunter Central Coast women’s side will enter the clash on a winning streak after claiming a 6.6 (36) to 3.4 (22) win against the South Coast in 2021.

Such has been McBride’s passion for the group that she organised a pre-season match for the representative side against the Inner West Magpies in February with the help of Killarney Vale’s Peter Kelleher and Newcastle City’s Kate Handley.

Despite a late venue change from the Central Coast to Sydney, her line-up triumphed 14.10 (94) to 0.0 (0).

Singleton’s Nadene McBride guided her side to a 94-point win against the Inner West Magpies in February.

“It was actually pretty one sided,” she revealed.

“I was expecting it to be a closer contest but Inner West was a bit depleted and they have gone down a division.

“But that has nothing to do with how it is going with the rep girls because they were amazing on the day.”

McBride believes her side can now claim three wins in a row and hopes her nominated players will accept their invitations.

“It’s not just for Women’s Cup players, in the Plate teams there would be some girls who are standouts in their team that could fit into our side quite easily as well,” she explained.

REPRESENTATIVE GAME

AFL Hunter Central Coast to play host to South Coast

WHEN

Saturday, July 1

WHERE

No.1 Sportsground, Newcastle

TIME

Womens 1.00pm

Mens 3.00pm

MEDIA

BarTV Live Stream