'Really exciting change': Decorated cricketer takes on fresh coaching role

Heytesbury Princetown Storm has signed Matt Love as playing-coach for the next two seasons.

Love - who is a former Brierly-Christ Church premiership captain in Warrnambool and coached at district level in Melbourne with Greenvale Kangaroos (formerly North Melbourne) - replaces club great Simon Harkness in the role.

He has spent the past few seasons as captain-coach of Stoneyford in the Colac association where he won the league's cricketer of the year in 2021-22 in his first year.

Love guided the club to a division one premiership in 2023-24.

The Camperdown-based Love has been actively involved in the association over the past few seasons as under 17 country week coach and said the timing was right to make the move.

"I'm looking forward to playing a lot more locally and the club based in Timboon really suits me on those hot weather days," he told The Standard.

"The wife and kids can get down to the beach at Port Campbell while I'm playing. It boiled down to it being a really exciting change for me for a few reasons."

Love said he was excited with the Storm's playing list, in particular some of the club's emerging young players.

"We'll be catching up in the next little while to work on what the club needs but the club is obviously really competitive, making the finals last year and almost making a grand final," he said.

"There's a lot to work with. I've worked with a couple of the players already and they're not just great cricketers but fantastic young men. Ryan Mottram is one, he captained the South West under 18s I coached and Tommy (Illingworth), I'm looking forward to catching up with them again.

"It's going to be great to work with all the boys."

The run machine, who scored 510 runs last season at an average of 42.50, including a brutal 165 not out against West Warrion, said he was looking forward to immersing himself within the association.

"Not only moving clubs but associations, it's really exciting," he said.

"I'm looking forward to seeing what the standard is like. South West seems to be a strong association, they've beaten Warrnambool so I'm sure it'll be a good standard of cricket.

"More than anything I'm just really keen on getting stuck into it."

Love said he was proud of his achievements at Stoneyford and left the club with no regrets.

"They had a lot of success just before I got there and it was always building towards winning another one (premiership)," he said.

"As a club we managed to do it. So it was really satisfying for me to finish off my time there winning another flag."