St Joseph’s star James Hickey has praised his new coach Ron Watt after a stunning start to the GFL season. Find out why he is the ‘perfect appointment’.
The Joeys currently sit third on the ladder with five wins from six games, with many around the competition initially expecting a significant drop off for the 2022 finalists after a player exodus and a new coach appointment.
But Hickey said his new coach had been a “fresh” change to the program after 2015 premiership player Paul Carson stepped aside at the end of 2022.
“It’s been a really fresh, new approach to everything as a whole,” he said.
“We’ve got a really young group of players coming through, and I think Ron was the perfect appointment to lead the new group.
“Obviously we lost a lot of experience at the end of last year so there was a bit of a changing of the guard in that respect, and Ron came in with not many expectations and had a really fresh approach to it all.
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“The boys have really bought in and love what he’s bringing.”
St Joseph’s is ranked fourth in the GFL for scoring and defence, despite having four players graduate from the under-18s program to feature at every senior game so far this season.
Hickey said he was never tempted to move onto another club in the off-season after watching players like Luke Webb, Riley Kershaw, Brant Haintz, James Gow and Riley Webb move on or retire.
“It was never really an option for me, I didn’t even think about it,” he said.
GFL elimination final Senior football : Leopold v St JosephÕs.
miss timed leap by St Josephs 27 James Hickey over Leopold 16 Oliver Tate
Picture: Mark Wilson
“I’m pretty embedded in the club, my mum is president this year so she was never going to let me move on if I wanted to.
“The majority of the team is homegrown, so a lot of the kids playing seniors we’ve watched come through the junior program and they’ve been around for ages, so there’s plenty of friendly faces.
“I could named 20 young guys that have been really impressive that have taken that next step, it was always going to be a pretty exciting year to be a part of.
“They’re all super talented, just imagine how good some of them are going to be in a couple of years when they’ve got 50 senior games under their belt.
“I saw it as an exciting time, obviously I didn’t want to lose the old heads but it gave a lot of opportunities to the young guys and so far they’ve taken those chances and are playing good footy.”