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Coaching Staff AFL Assistant Coaches 2022

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eth-dog

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Jan 11, 2007
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Location
Melbourne
AFL Club
Essendon
Other Teams
Coburg Lions, All Boston sides
2022 Coaching Structure
Senior Coach – Ben Rutten (thread)
Assistant coach (midfield and team offence) – Blake Caracella
Assistant coach (back line and team defence) – Daniel Giansiracusa
Assistant coach (forward) - Dale Tapping
Assistant coach (ruck) - Tom Bellchambers
Development coach – Leigh Tudor
Development coach – Cameron Roberts
Development coach - Natalie Wood (also our AFLW Coach)
VFL Head Coach - Brent Stanton
VFL Assistant Coach (defence) - Dustin Fletcher
VFL Assistant Coach (midfield) - Ben Jolley
VFL Assistant coach (forward) - Michael Hurley
 
Last edited:
www.essendonfc.com.au

Stanton set to lead Bombers' VFL side

A favourite son returns home to take the reins in the VFL.
www.essendonfc.com.au www.essendonfc.com.au

Former Essendon star Brent Stanton will return to the club as its VFL coach in 2022.

The 35-year-old re-joins the club he played 255 games for after spending four seasons at Carlton in various coaching roles.

Following a 13-season career at the Bombers, where he currently sits 13th for most games played, Stanton arrived at the Blues as a development coach at the end of the 2017 season.

He then rapidly rose through the ranks to become an assistant coach, having also overseen Carlton’s midfield and ball transition in recent seasons.

Stanton is a highly regarded figure within the NEC Hangar, having earned seven top-five placings in the Crichton Medal count during his career, which included three third-places and one runner-up.
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Mahoney says:
General manager of football Josh Mahoney said Stanton’s appointment was an important step for the club as it looks to put more resources into its VFL program.

“Our VFL program plays a very important role in the development of our AFL-listed players, as well as an avenue for VFL-listed players to maximise their potential. We’re delighted to have Brent return to the NEC Hangar as the VFL senior coach,” Mahoney said.

“He’s a much-loved figure here at Essendon after forging a wonderful career as a player.

“This appointment benefits both the club and Brent. This additional resource allows experienced coach Leigh Tudor to focus entirely on the development of our AFL players, as well as being an important next step in Brent’s coaching career to coach his own team.

“We look forward to him getting familiar with our game style and having a positive impact on our VFL program.”
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Stants says:
Stanton said he was thrilled to return home.

“I’m really excited by the opportunity to coach the Bombers’ VFL side,” Stanton said.

“I have so much admiration for this club which I called home for the whole of my playing career.

“It’s clear to see the talent unearthed at the club this year, and I’m determined to facilitate an environment which helps our younger and developing players grow in our VFL program to ensure they’re ready to impact at AFL level.”

Stanton is one of three additions to the Bombers’ 2022 coaching line-up, joining new forwards coach Dale Tapping and part-time development coach Alex Rance.
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eth-dog so Tudor is going to be exclusively working with the AFL development players now. Don't know what that means for Cam Roberts though? (In the Mahoney quotes.)
 


Not sure if coach or “coach” but ye
 
Lore said:


Not sure if coach or “coach” but ye
Click to expand...


From the link on his Instagram;

ALEX — CUZZIE PERFORMANCE

Alex has over ten years experience working with elite athletes and holds a Masters of High Performance Sport degree.

He is currently the High Performance Manager at WNBL club, Southside Flyers and is also a lecturer at Australian Catholic University.

Previously he spent ten years in the AFL with Melbourne FC in roles as Strength & Conditioning Coach, Rehabilitation Coach and Sport Science & Conditioning Manager. Prior to joining Melbourne FC, he worked for Casey Scorpions Football Club (VFL) for five years as the Head of Strength and Conditioning.

He has also privately consulted to school sport academy’s, teams and individual athletes ranging from recreation level to the elite level and from junior level to senior level. Furthermore, Alex regularly lectures in the Australian Strength & Conditioning Association (ASCA) coaching courses and is a coordinator for the ASCA Melbourne special interest group.

He received his undergraduate degree in exercise and sport science in 2011 and went on to complete his Honours degree at Victoria University in 2012. In 2016 Alex completed a Masters of High Performance Sport through Australian Catholic University.

Alex is accredited at the highest level with the ASCA as a Level 3 and Master level coach.
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Presumably Mahoney already knew him.
 
I know someone who worked at Casey during that time in the same department. I'll ask about him.
 

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Write up about Rance's role.
  • Role is 1-1.5 days a week over the pre-season
  • Also working at an education program that he co-founded in 2016 for year 11s and 12s
  • Definitely doesn't want to play again
  • Working with KPPs and 1st-4th year players
  • Developing players' technical and leadership skills
  • Describes Zerk-Thatcher as responding well to feedback
  • Looking forward to working with Rutten and Caracella again
  • Considers Rutten and Caracella's strength as being 'principles-based' coaching, as compared with rules-based
Quotes from Rance:
“It’s very exciting. After my retirement in 2019, the last two years have showed me that I still love the game, but I just needed to work out where it fits in with my life and priorities,” Rance said.

“I feel I’ve got a really good understanding of what I want my life to look life, in terms of putting my priorities first.

“[It’s exciting] to jump back in and do support work in something that was a strength of my game – that contest craft and working with key-position players. I’ve always had a passion for helping young people achieve young goals in that leadership and mentor role.

“It works really well for me to come in and dip my toes in the water just for the pre-season and have that exposure to high-level athletes and young athletes who want to improve in that key-position area.

“At this stage it’ll be a day or day-and-a-half a week in pre-season. I’ll work with anyone who wants to work on their key-position craft. I’ve got a curriculum of drills and technical focuses to try to improve on, but one of the things I also talked about with Ben Rutten was role modelling some of the leadership behaviours which made me successful as a player.”

“The opportunity came up through conversations with Ben Rutten. Ben has been a really close friend of mine,” he said.

“On a personal level, we’re similar people. We love camping and being out of the city, and I think that has drawn us closer to each other over the years. We have a personal and professional connection, which is nice.

“From a professional perspective, ‘Truck’ [Rutten] and ‘Cara’ [Caracella] have been the greatest principle-based coaches I’ve experienced. Admittedly I haven’t had a lot of coaches over my time, as once we had success, it was a pretty stable coaching panel at Richmond.

“They [Rutten and Caracella] allow players to play their strengths by coaching them by principles, not by rules. I think you could start to see the identity of Essendon across the year, and how much more evident it became towards the back of the year as the players knew where they fitted within the system and the principles Truck wanted them to play by.

“I really respect the way Truck coaches and teaches, and that’s the same with Cara.”

"[Playing that game for Essendon VFL] was a really nice full stop on my playing career. It was interesting comparing my second half to my first half. In the first half I felt like I was playing well, but I ran out of gas in the second half. It just shows how finely tuned you have to be as an athlete to perform at a high level for long enough,” he said.

“Now I know that I’m prepared to support, but not prepared to give up my whole life in the pursuit of being an elite athlete again. It was exciting [to be back playing], but the thing I enjoyed most was seeing the growth of someone like [Brandon] Zerk-Thatcher, and how he responded to feedback, along with some of the other young players in midfield.

“That was what I really got a kick out of - helping blokes position themselves so that they can execute, and give them confidence to play to their strengths.

“It’s such an exciting list at Essendon. I spoke to them in the change rooms after the game, and told them the talent was definitely there. It’s just a matter of doing it regularly enough – that’s the difference between good sides and the rest. It’s exciting to see how much more growth this team has, because they showed in 2021 the amazing amount of talent and potential they have.”
Click to expand...
www.essendonfc.com.au

Rance gets his kicks in mentor role

Alex Rance discusses the motives behind his move to Essendon as a development coach.
www.essendonfc.com.au www.essendonfc.com.au
 
Lore said:
  • Considers Rutten and Caracella's strength as being 'principles-based' coaching, as compared with rules-based
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Would be interested to hear more about what this means in practice, there's a clear (IMO) difference between how the team looks under Worsfold vs Rutten for example.
 
owen87 said:
Would be interested to hear more about what this means in practice, there's a clear (IMO) difference between how the team looks under Worsfold vs Rutten for example.
Click to expand...
Me too. He doesn't really say a lot about it so it's hard to know, but if I was to guess the difference is like 'principle: we work hard & look after each other' 'rule: if a team mate is in a better position, pass it to them'. I guess the former is a bit more flexible and allows them to think about how to enact that principle, rather than turning the brain off and following the pre-determined rule regardless of other circumstances?
 
Lore said:
Me too. He doesn't really say a lot about it so it's hard to know, but if I was to guess the difference is like 'principle: we work hard & look after each other' 'rule: if a team mate is in a better position, pass it to them'. I guess the former is a bit more flexible and allows them to think about how to enact that principle, rather than turning the brain off and following the pre-determined rule regardless of other circumstances.
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I always think to how Collingwood played a few years back under Buckley; very confused and unclear about what to do, where to run. Looked like there were too many 'rules' and thus players got stuck thinking. They changed up their assistants over the off-season and looked much better, making the GF that season I think?

Melbourne similar under Goodwin, then added Mark Williams and seem to be significantly better for it.

My guess is there's something in that principles vs rules comment that Rance made that relates to all the above.
 
andleanback said:
Well they were either following his instructions or not listening to him.
Click to expand...

Think they where following the T Trains instructions. Bolton sacked for being too defensive. Teauge sacked for not defending.
 

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VelvetSledge said:
Nope, he’s on our coaching staff on a part time basis



Until the mid year draft when we sign him
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He could very well be called upon to cover for close contacts/covid issues

A few teams might get a look before mid season draft

I thought he was departing at an earlier time. Must not be the case
 
Keystone agony said:
He could very well be called upon to cover for close contacts/covid issues

A few teams might get a look before mid season draft

I thought he was departing at an earlier time. Must not be the case
Click to expand...

I recall reading somewhere that he was only doing something up until Christmas, but can't recall where or what.
 
owen87 said:
I recall reading somewhere that he was only doing something up until Christmas, but can't recall where or what.
Click to expand...
The article on the club website that introduced him said he was here for the preseason and he has his academy or whatever to deal with during the year
 

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Lore said:
The article on the club website that introduced him said he was here for the preseason and he has his academy or whatever to deal with during the year
Click to expand...

Rance steps away from Essendon role

The former Tiger has reportedly stepped away from his role.
www.sen.com.au www.sen.com.au

RANCE STEPS AWAY FROM ESSENDON ROLE​

BY ANDREW SLEVISON 39 MINUTES AGO


Alex Rance has stepped away from his role at Essendon.

The former Richmond defender was appointed as a part-time development coach at the Bombers in September last year.



Kane Cornes has revealed that the 32-year-old cannot commit to the club at this stage.

“I can tell you that Essendon and Alex Rance will not be continuing in the development role that he’s been fulfilling up until the Christmas period,” Cornes said on SEN Mornings.

“Alex has got a lot of things on his plate and can’t commit to the Bombers. They’re almost severing ties on what is his development coaching setup right now.

“That’s not to say that there may not be a role for him in the future. I’ve spoken to the club about this.

“Alex Rance won’t be continuing at the Bombers.”

Rance is founder and director of The Academy, an education and training program for the next generation of AFL players, and will seemingly focus on that, among other things.

When Rance first joined the Dons, he said: “I’m really excited to join the Bombers as a development coach for next season.

“I couldn’t think of a better place to start my journey as a coach in the AFL. Having familiar faces in ‘Truck’ (Ben Rutten) and ‘Cara’ (Blake Caracella) around to work with was really appealing to me.

“I can’t wait to get started and help the club towards success.”

The 2017 Tigers premiership star filled in for the Bombers in the VFL last year and there were constant murmurings that he may sensationally come out of retirement with the red and black at some point in 2022, but that now appears a fantasy.

The club is yet to officially announce the news.
 
I Remember Bluey said:

Rance steps away from Essendon role

The former Tiger has reportedly stepped away from his role.
www.sen.com.au www.sen.com.au

RANCE STEPS AWAY FROM ESSENDON ROLE​

BY ANDREW SLEVISON 39 MINUTES AGO


Alex Rance has stepped away from his role at Essendon.

The former Richmond defender was appointed as a part-time development coach at the Bombers in September last year.



Kane Cornes has revealed that the 32-year-old cannot commit to the club at this stage.

“I can tell you that Essendon and Alex Rance will not be continuing in the development role that he’s been fulfilling up until the Christmas period,” Cornes said on SEN Mornings.

“Alex has got a lot of things on his plate and can’t commit to the Bombers. They’re almost severing ties on what is his development coaching setup right now.

“That’s not to say that there may not be a role for him in the future. I’ve spoken to the club about this.

“Alex Rance won’t be continuing at the Bombers.”

Rance is founder and director of The Academy, an education and training program for the next generation of AFL players, and will seemingly focus on that, among other things.

When Rance first joined the Dons, he said: “I’m really excited to join the Bombers as a development coach for next season.

“I couldn’t think of a better place to start my journey as a coach in the AFL. Having familiar faces in ‘Truck’ (Ben Rutten) and ‘Cara’ (Blake Caracella) around to work with was really appealing to me.

“I can’t wait to get started and help the club towards success.”

The 2017 Tigers premiership star filled in for the Bombers in the VFL last year and there were constant murmurings that he may sensationally come out of retirement with the red and black at some point in 2022, but that now appears a fantasy.

The club is yet to officially announce the news.
Click to expand...
Trust SEN to turn it into A Big Deal.
 
NEW REVELATIONS RANCE ALWAYS PLANNED TO STEP AWAY FROM ESSENDON ROLE BEFORE SEASON STARTED
 
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