Gotch reaches 150 games

[Dale61]

Williamstown coach excited about his club’s future.

Brad Gotch this weekend joins a select crew who have coached 150 games in the VFA/VFL, but his love affair with the competition stretches way back.

Gotch can remember watching the then VFA on television in the late 1970s.

He can readily recall the great Port Melbourne and Preston teams in the early 1980s, when the finals attracted gigantic crowds at the Junction Oval. From there, Gotch became part of the action.

He played in a premiership in 1991, his first year as a playing assistant coach at Dandenong. Later, Gotch would coach at the Dandenong Redlegs, Springvale, Collingwood, and for the past five seasons, Williamstown.

He’s just as passionate about the caper as he was a quarter of a century ago. “I have enjoyed every minute of it. It has been a great competition to be involved in, and the way it has evolved has been great,” Gotch said.

“It certainly has come a long way. “I suppose I have some traditional views as to how the competition should be maintained because of its proud history. You would love to see it get back to those days where they had the really big crowds at the Junction Oval and people took it to heart.

“I can see in the last 12 months, especially with the Collingwood/Williamstown alignment now into its fifth year, a lot more Collingwood people down at Williamstown.

“It’s a different environment, plus there are a lot of good young Collingwood players running around at Williamstown, which the club welcomes with open arms.”

Gotch believes the decision of Collingwood captain Nathan Buckley to play with Williamstown last year was a pivotal point in drawing more people to TRUenergy VFL games, and did wonders for the credibility of the competition.

He said the fact that Buckley had confidence in Williamstown and the competition, and was prepared to play for the jumper attracted much goodwill.

“People who had never been before thought ‘this is pretty good, you can get up close and personal’, and they took to it.”

After two modest years following the Seagulls’ 2003 premiership, Gotch is upbeat about the club returning to the finals. Although Williamstown lost some good players like Sam Cranage, Luke Jarrad, Brendon Hollow and Craig Smoker last year, Gotch said selective recruiting had paid dividends.

He described recruits Steven Greene, Brett Johnson, Andrew Williams and Stephen Brewer as quality inclusions.

“For those guys to come into an environment with Brad Lloyd and Rayden Tallis, all of a sudden you have a good core Williamstown group, which is complimented by a young Collingwood list,” Gotch said.

“They are bonding together well, and playing for the right reasons.”

http://vfl.footballvic.com.au/_content/document/00046960-src.pdf