New Williamstown coach Andy Collins wants the Seagulls to be known as the best Australian Rules football club outside of the AFL, as the Gulls prepare to go stand-alone in the Victorian Football League in 2014.
Collins signed on for two years on Saturday morning, and was officially announced to replace former coach Peter German at the club’s best-and-fairest that same evening. Current assistant coach Adam Potter will be his second-in-charge.
Collins has spent the past six years as coach of South Australian National Football League club West Adelaide, taking the Bloods from four consecutive wooden spoons to a grand final appearance in 2012 and a preliminary final this season.
He resigned from his post at West Adelaide in August, coaching out the remainder of the season before looking for new opportunities.
Collins was “really interested” in the Williamstown role, and the Seagulls “set out to try and get Andy”. President Trevor Monti, CEO Brendan Curry and football manager Chris Dixon flew to Adelaide to meet Collins.
A three-time premiership player and Peter Crimmins Medallist with Hawthorn during their glory years of the late ’80s and early ’90s, Collins said he was thrilled to get the gig.
“I saw Williamstown had decided to go stand-alone as a VFL club and I gave Brendan Curry a call and said that I’d be really interested,” Collins said.
“I really like coaching and coaching my own club, that’s something I have really enjoyed over the past six years.
“Coaching a whole club like Williamstown was my preferred choice.
“They are very professional and the board is really superb. They’ve communicated with me and it’s a real strength of the club. They function very well off-field.”
On field, the Seagulls have made finals for eight consecutive seasons, however ultimate success has eluded them – there have been six preliminary final losses in 2006-08, 2010 and 2012-13, a semi final exit in 2009 and a grand final loss to great rival Port Melbourne in 2011.
Collins said he was confident the Gulls would continue to be a major player as they seek their first flag since 2003. “Williamstown has had terrific on-field success with the AFL alignments and now going stand-alone will be a great challenge to the football club,” he said.
“Williamstown wants to become the greatest stand-alone club outside the AFL in the country, and what a great vision that is.
“My vision is to get the best young men from all over Australia to play for this great club in the best competition outside the AFL.”
Curry said Williamstown was ecstatic to have Collins on board. “When we made the decision not to appoint Peter German for next year we didn’t advertise, we set out to try and get Andy,” said Curry.
“We’re very pleased to have been able to achieve that from a football club point of view and Andy is very excited about coming back to Melbourne to coach a stand-alone club.”
In more good news for the Seagulls, nearly 30 players have re-signed for next year, and Curry expects more to come under Collins.
“We expect to sign about 35 of our existing list, so we will have an extremely high retention rate,” he said.
“It’s a testament to the playing group as a whole. We’ve got good depth and now we need to go out and recruit top-end talent and that’s what we are endeavouring to do.
“We are not entering next season just to be happy with going stand-alone and being mid-ladder, we’re going to be aggressive and as strong as we can.”
