By Tyler Lewis
Steve Hughes will steer Noble Park again in 2023.
The long-time coach is on the cusp of something special with Noble Park, as the Bulls embark on an important Eastern Football League finals campaign.
Hughes has held the reins of Springvale Districts – leading the Demons to a premiership in 2007 – before guiding Mornington Peninsula club Bonbeach to a selection of September tilts.
The 2021 EFNL Coach of the Year has coached a plethora of wonderful footballers at a number of clubs, but putting pen to paper at Noble Park is more special to Hughes given his ancestral ties to the club.
“Yeah of course, it’s good, this will be my last senior job, I think I will pull up stumps when it’s all done and dusted at Noble Park,” he revealed.
“It’s the club I was born into, the grounds named after my grandfather, it’ll be nice to finish – I have been coaching a long time – at the club you grew up at… not everyone is able to do that.
“We have a bit of a clean run at it now with no more lockdowns, after a really difficult three years managing 50 young men in a pandemic, (that’s) really tough mentally.
“It’s really nice we have some clear air now and we’re able to build on relationships.”
As a position in the grand final is just one win away for Noble Park, Hughes reflected on the year at Bonbeach where he felt his second senior flag got away.
“The one that got away for me was my last year at Bonny in 2019,” he recalled.
“We made the prelim, we came like a steam train… we finished fifth, had got belted by Frankston YCW in round 18, then we played them in the elimination final and smashed them.
“The following week we smashed Pines, then we ran into Dromana (eventual premier) and it hosed down, it basically hailed the whole day.
“It was a goal the difference, we were playing a fantastic brand of footy; I think we were a legitimate chance of winning that one, but we got rolled by a goal.
“All things being equal on a dry day, I think we would’ve won that day, but that’s footy, you have to win in all conditions.”
