By Tara Murray
Rupertswood has surprisingly parted ways with premiership-winning netball coach Di McCormack.
McCormack has been head coach at Rupertswood for the past seven years, leading the club’s netball program to 15 premierships in the Riddell District Netball League.
This year, the club won three netball premierships, including breaking through for its first A-grade flag.
McCormack, who wanted to coach on with the club, said she was disappointed by the decision.
She had wanted to coach on for at least another year.
“The club is looking in a different direction and looking at a different netball set-up,” she said.
“When I think about it, we’ve won 15 premierships and I don’t think that many others would have won that many.
“We played in four grand finals this year … I thought if we could have kept the group together we could have had more success.”
McCormack said she loved her time at Rupertswood and was proud of what they achieved in a short period of time.
The A-grade premiership this year was a highlight for McCormack after so many close misses in finals.
The other was the development of the program and seeing the players coming through.
The under-19 team has won six premierships in a row and never lost a match.
“We’ve got players who started in under-17s and have rolled up into A-grade,” she said.
“We’ve got three players in the top 50 players for under-17s ahead of the Vic trials and two in the under-19s.
“Some of these girls have played for us for a long time.”
Sharks president Brad Pietromonaco said the club was looking to take a different direction next season.
He said they expected that it would impact on results and that it wasn’t all about winning.
“Di has been there for seven years,” he said.
“We want to get some more local girls back into the teams. A lot of girls are missing out on opportunities with girls coming in from downtown.
“It’s something that has been on our mind the last couple of years. We’ve bitten the bullet and we know it’s going to hurt.
“They won the A-grade premiership and it’s a chance to finish on a high.”
Pietromonaco said that they expected to lose a big chunk of the netball playing group due to the decision.
He said they would look at what they’ve done with the football program and build the program using locals.
He said they had a strong junior program.
The club will be advertising for netball coaches and a netball co-ordinator for next season.
In other news, the Sharks are set to have a members vote on whether the club will make a possible move to the Essendon District Football League in 2021.
Pietromonaco said they wanted to get an idea where their members saw the club’s future.
