NATHAN Isles’ appointment as South Rovers coach came with the ringing endorsement of his new teammates.
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After all, they were the ones who gave the club the green light to sign the former Warrnambool and Hamilton footballer as Brendan Whelan’s replacement.
The Lions, in a major departure from the norm, left the decision in the hands of their six-member leadership group.
South Rovers selection panel member Matt Wood said the club insisted on the process as a way of keeping its playing list intact.
An initial selection panel devised a short list of applicants, who were interviewed by the panel and senior players Julian Claridge and Braden Hotker.
Applicants who passed the first interview then faced the six-member leadership group, which had the final say on who was offered the job.
“We believe we have a really good core of players,” Wood said.
“And in respect to Brendan, he brought a lot of those players with him when he started coaching.
“The last thing we wanted to do was lose any of those players.”
Claridge, Hotker, Jake Bacon, Dominic Bushell, Kyeran Ellery and Jack Downie were the players entrusted with making the decision.
“They tried to select the guy who would be best for the core we had here and whether they could add to it,” Wood said.
Isles, 28, said the interview process was “certainly very different”.
But he believed the scrutiny was a positive which would benefit the club.
“At the end of the day the players are the ones who do have the most contact,” he said.
“A coach can be appointed by the committee with what’s on paper.
“But the process I went through was quite stringent, which was good.
“They’ve gone to every length to make sure they’ve made the right call, which hopefully they have. I thought it was quite good.”
Hamilton-raised Isles arrives at Walter Oval after a senior football career stretching across two senior clubs in two leagues.
He played juniors at St Mary’s Monivae before joining Western Border league club Hamilton, playing in a premiership in 2004.
Isles shifted to Warrnambool to study teaching in 2007 and made Hampden league club Warrnambool his football home.
He has been with the Blues since, coaching their reserves in 2011-12 and under 18½s in 2013-14.
Isles believed he was ready to take on a senior coaching position — “I feel like I’ve done a mini-apprenticeship”.
He was appreciative of the support from Warrnambool senior coach Scott Carter and said the Lions would seek to play a possession-based brand of football.
“We’re going to try and hold on to the footy as much as possible. We’ll try different things, depending on what personnel we can get over the pre-season,” he said.
“Personnel will dictate what kind of game plan we go with, but I want a high skill, run-and-carry, possession game.”