By RUSSELL BENNETT
SCOTT Gowans is easy to admire.
The straight-shooting Longwarry Football Club coach is back for his second season at the helm of the Crows – a year in which he knows the side isn’t positioned to win the flag.
The 2016 season won’t be an easy one for a team that made the Ellinbank and District Football League (EDFL) East grand final little more than a year ago. They’ll be without champion midfielder and former league best and fairest winner Tye Holland – who has signed on with the Warragul Industrials – and by Gowans’ own admission the club started behind the eight-ball when it came to their recruiting.
In fact, it looked certain that the Crows would enter 2016 without Gowans as well. He resigned after a tumultuous season off field for the club, in which its president stepped aside. Gowans’ decision forced the Crows’ hand, and with the club now much more stable at board level, he subsequently signed back on for two years with an option for a third.
“My coaching philosophy has three keywords in it – clarity, preparation, and communication,” Gowans said.
“I didn’t have clarity, I hadn’t had any communication, and I’d got no chance to prepare properly with recruitment so the three keywords in my philosophy weren’t getting met, so I resigned and thought it would force them to do something.
“It was through noone’s fault – it’s just the way it was. There was a whole mix of reasons – noone was to blame, it was just circumstance.”
But under new club president Aaron Jones and senior vice president Chris Morse, the Crows have a clear direction – a set path towards sustained success. And they won’t be taking any shortcuts.
Former president Terry Serong also stepped aside to help force change, and he’s now back on the committee. He, along with the executive committee, are working tirelessly to take the Crows forward.
“The perception of the club in the community has always been that it’s a pretty good place to come and have a beer and socialise, and there’s great family people around the place, and that’s about it,” Gowans said with trademark honesty.
“They haven’t won a premiership for 48 years at the senior level, and I think at some point someone has to do something about that.
“You can’t always do what you’ve always done, because you’ll always get the same result so you’ve got to be able to change. The way that I accepted the role to come on for the next period was that I want to be able to force change.”
Gowans is a vastly experienced coach, and is also at the helm of the Dandenong Stingrays Youth Girls Academy side. He knows what it takes to build for success, and it starts with youth.
As soon as he knew he’d be back as Crows coach, he was on the phone to their juniors – making sure they were committed from 2016 onwards. The likes of Jedd Serong, Kane Oldham, Jesse Davies and Rick Salce are stars of the future and are key to Longwarry’s chances of sustained success.
“It’s going to be tough going into next year,” Gowans admitted.
“Having said that though, we’re going to blood the juniors again and some of them have already played several senior games. We’ll just top up with a few more kids and expose them to senior footy. With a decent attitude and hard work ethic they might surprise a few people along the way, but it’s going to take a year or two to build up something more sustainable at senior level.”
The goal for the Crows has to be sustained success, and they know it. So, right now, it’s about getting everyone on the same page.
Gowans said the Crows have a “white paper” to get the senior side in order for 2016 and beyond. Next year they’ll play at a particularly low points base, which they could then increase substantially in 2017 through recruitment.
“That’s where it’s good for a club like us where the junior club is strong,” Gowans said.
“If you really look after the juniors and bring them through, they’re only worth one point. That’s the way to do it.
“I think the days of a committee sitting down and saying ‘we want to win a flag this year – let’s go and get five players’ are gone.”
At this stage, key position forward Clint Meyer, Ben Cuckson, Jake and Dylan Serong, Josh Bourke, and Troy Lehman all look like lining up for the Crows in 2016, while the club is hopeful of retaining big man Nick Redley.
