Whittlesea Ranges had a solid start to life under new coach George Karkaletsis in National Premier League2 west on Saturday.
The Ranges made a coaching change in the lead-up to the weekend’s match against North Geelong Warriors after not recording a win in their opening eight matches.
Karkaletsis comes to the Ranges having coached at Geelong and Brunswick City previously.
Savvas Patikkis has been appointed assistant coach.
While the Ranges didn’t come away with the win, they did secure a point from the 0-0 draw.
Ranges secretary Sergio Costanzo said it was an improved performance from the side.
“We played well on the weekend against a team which is up there,” he said. “It was a 0-0 draw, we could have quite easily won the game.”
The result leaves the Ranges with three points from the first nine rounds.
Costanzo said the poor start to the season was the reason for parting ways with Tony Ciantar.
He said Ranges couldn’t stay still, especially with a new Football Victoria structure coming into place next season.
The top six teams from NPL 2 west will stay in that competition next season, while the other teams will be in the new NPL 3.
The Ranges currently sit bottom.
“The club would like to thank Tony for the work he did last year and what he tried to do at the start of the year,” Costanzo said.
“We spoke last week and things weren’t panning out the way we wanted.
“We were sitting without a win in round eight – the club had to make the change.”
Costanzo said they would look to add some new players in the transfer window in coming weeks.
He said the club needed to have a strong senior program to support a strong junior program.
“The juniors are stronger than ever,” he said. “We’re working on the environment and pathway to have a strong senior team.”
In the NPL, Hume City had a 2-0 win against South Melbourne on Sunday.
James Brown scored both goals for Hume.
Hume is sixth heading in the Easter break, nine points behind runaway leader Avondale.
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