TERRY Burn has been entrusted with the job of leading Wauchope into the Mid North Coast Premier League in 2017.
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On the surface, Burn’s credentials speak for themselves.
He is a Wauchope boy through and through and has been involved with the club for more than 20 years and was a regular in the senior squad in his playing days.
He also is believed to currently hold the highest level coaching certificate of any coach on the Mid-North Coast.
Winning is instilled into him and you need to look no further than when he was heavily with the club during their golden era which produced three successive titles.
But in recent times he coached junior Football Mid North Coast representative squads with success.
“I’ve done a pretty wide variety of coaching from state leagues to club football, through to juniors and seniors, along with both women’s and men’s teams at every different level,” Burn said.
Then the offer to return to Wauchope proved too good.
“When you’re a keen football player and you unfortunately get past your use by date as a player it’s good to be able to put something back in and still be involved,” he said.
“It wasn’t one particular thing that made me want to come back and do it; it was just a progression.”
Those in the know describe Burn as a “new age” style of coach which means Wauchope will be expected to play a specific way.
They won’t be reliant on long ball, route one football.
Instead, Burn will focus on his players keeping the ball.
“The old running laps of a paddock and doing sprints and burpees and all that sort of stuff doesn’t exist for me; it’s totally ball-focused training,” Burn said.
“I’d say 99 per cent of what we do is with the ball so it all follows the FFA curriculum for coaching.”
Burn didn’t believe there was a chance he could have to readjust the way he wanted the team to play, depending on the players he had.
“It doesn’t depend on the players you’ve got,” he said.
“You can use that as an excuse, but every coach will come to a team with their own philosophy on how they want to play.
“Your job as a coach is to go in and mould the players to play the football you want to play.”
The coach has already set his sights on the club qualifying for the finals in their first year back.
“I think that’s something that is well within the realms of possibility,” he said.
“The boys are keen, we’ve had a few enquiries from other players from other clubs as well, so now it’s up to us to build a good squad and get them playing good football.
“We’re in it to win it, we’re not in it to make up the numbers.”