Tara Murray
The Sunbury Lions have turned to a former premiership coach to help get an A-grade side back on court in the Ballarat Netball League next year.
Kim Bailey has been appointed A-grade coach and will oversee the netball side of things with Stacey West.
West, who has been part of the Lions coaching panel this season, works for Netball Australia as the executive general manager of performance.
Bailey said having seen how the club struggled this season to get teams on the court, she wanted to help them get things going again.
The Lions only had under-19, B-grade and D-grade sides this year, a far cry from being in premiership contention as they usually are.
“They are struggling a bit and need some help,” she said. “Stacey and I will work together to get the club back on their feet and have a few more grades.
“We will look to get an A-grade team up and running and try and get B-grade, C-grade, D-grade, E-grade and under-19s.
“We understand there have been issues with numbers which will make it pretty difficult.”
Bailey said watching the struggles of the club this year had been hard. As well as coaching an A-grade premiership, she’s a premiership player and coached junior sides at the club.
She said they had already started talking to prospect players and coaches for next season. She said they would love to see some former players return.
“We want to get a team on the court and then see what that looks like,” she said.
“We just want to get some wins on the board. We’re not looking to get ahead of ourselves.
“We need to get girls back to the club. Many still have boyfriends and brothers playing footy. We want a real community club again.”
Bailey said she was excited to coach alongside West. She said there weren’t many opportunities at local level to have a coach of her experience.
“We’re looking to have a succession plan,” she said. “We want to develop coaches to take over when we’re ready to pull the win.
“She’s a high performance coach with Australia. Her coaching experience leaves me for dead to be honest.
“I learn more from her even more as I work with her as well. We’ll both oversee the coaches and hopefully attract players from other clubs to come on board.”
Anyone interested in getting involved as a player or coach can contact Bailey on 0459 642 271.
