By JARROD POTTER
A DECADE-LONG tenure as Dandenong Stingrays’ head coach came to an end this week, with Graeme Yeats deciding to step down from the role he’s had since 2004.
Sensing his time would be cut short by the club at the end of this year Yeats decided to bow out on his own terms.
“It was more the last couple of weeks – I guess I saw the writing was on the wall – Mark (Wheeler) and I were on different pages about the program and didn’t really see eye-to-eye on some things,” Yeats said.
“I talked about not going on next year during the year and we talked about grooming Blacky (assistant coach Craig Black) for the role – we didn’t really talk a time frame and it was a bit open ended.
“Towards the year end I was reasonably keen to go on, but it was really hard to nail Mark down to talk about it… I guess without being told I saw the writing on the wall, so I think it’s best to move on.”
Coaching likely won’t be on the cards for Yeats again anytime soon, deciding to look towards recruiting and enjoy his first off-season without coaching commitments in a decade.
“I’ll head in a different direction myself – I thought once I gave up the Stingrays that I probably wouldn’t coach again,” Yeats said.
“So maybe in the spirit of recruiting perhaps – I’ve discussed over the years an opportunity that may exist in that field – so I’ll sit back for a couple of weeks and have a rest and I’ll just clear the head for a while and not think too much about footy.”
Yeats looked back on his time fondly through the staff and coaches around who made it a strong environment to cultivate prospective AFL talent.
“It’s more about the people and the involvement with the kids – we’ve had a pretty solid coaching group and staff that have been together for a long, long time and those people make it really enjoyable,” Yeats said.
“We’ve had a good working relationship with most of the staff there and working with those people continuously and seeing really good kids coming through is obviously the thing we do it for.
“We don’t do it for the money – the rewards are it’s a fantastic environment and we get to challenge a whole new group of players every year so it’s enlightening in that regard.”
His final match at the helm of Dandenong is one he’d like to forget though, with the Stingrays thumped by the Eastern Ranges in the TAC Cup grand final by 112 points.
It was Yeats’ fourth TAC Cup grand final following 2005 and back-to-back appearances in 2008 and 2009.
Dandenong Stingrays region manager Mark Wheeler said the decision on Yeats’ future at the club hadn’t been decided before he resigned, but the club had Black in mind for the role as part of their succession planning over the last two seasons.
Wheeler said it would be a tough challenge for the Stingrays to find someone capable of emulating Yeats’ success in years to come.
“It’s going to be hard to continue what we’ve been able to achieve – having Graeme for 10 years it’s been an amazing ride as he’s probably one of the most talented coaches in the TAC Cup,” Wheeler said.
“He understands the philosophy of the TAC Cup and that’s probably why he’s been so successful over the last 10 years.”
Wheeler said the Stingrays will announce their new coach later this week.
