Altona’s new era under former AFL star Travis Varcoe is under way ahead of the Western Region Football League division 1 season.
The former Cat and Pie has a breadth of experience from his 230 game AFL career, including winning two flags with the Cats and being part of Collingwood’s 2018 losing grand final.
Vacoe was announced as premiership coach Corey McCall’s successor in October and has been finding his feet at the club since.
“In the early stages it’s been pretty enjoyable, there’s a bit of hard work in it but that’s what makes it enjoyable,” he said.
“Anytime you start something you want to leave it in a better place than when you got there, and I think Corey and the team that he had around him certainly did that and you see the end results with playing in finals series and grand finals.
“It’s built around good people, good culture, good connection and that’s one thing that really drew me to Altona was you actually end up staying if you come from the outside and the juniors generally stay on, which is a great sign of what they have been able to build over a period of time.
“It’s nice to be able to add something to that and where this journey goes we’ll have to wait and see, you just hope that you can add some value and the silverware is secondary to that.”
A large crop of junior talent at the club has stayed on for 2024, much of the youth was a part of its preliminary final side last season, and have forged a strong bond with each other and the club.
Since retiring from playing, Varcoe has focused his attention on development, both as a development coach with the Western Bulldogs in 2023, and as a teacher in his personal life.
“My passion is development and that’s in general in youth development, and then you couple that with football, that’s something that I know a little bit about,” he said.
“My job is to facilitate wherever young people want to get to, whether that’s an AFL dream, whether they just want to be the best version of themselves, whether they want to play VFL, whatever it is, my job is to help guide and facilitate that.
“You feel like you’ve got a wealth of knowledge, you’ve been able to pick up a couple of things during your time in the AFL system, that you can actually have a bit of an impact.”
With the strong foundations that have been laid at the club coupled with Varcoe’s passion for development he said he feels the club is in a good position.
“I don’t feel like I have to come in and reinvent the wheel, I can just narrow in a little bit and take it from there,” he said.
“I’m relatively happy but again you don’t actually know how good you’re going until you play real opposition.”
Altona has a bye in the first round and will kick off its season on April 20 against Point Cook.
