Altona has a new coach for the Hockey Victoria men’s winter premier league season, with a familiar face to take the reins.
Greg Drake returns to the club with an incredible resume which started at the Seagulls, where he played 250 state league 1 (PL) games for Altona, playing a key role in two premierships and was a Victorian senior side squad member.
He has coached the club’s MPL side before, more than 10 years ago, and more recently the WPL side.
In the time since last coaching MPL, he has coached the Victorian under-21s, has won the Australian Hockey League as a coach of the Victorian Vipers, before moving to coach International hockey as assistant for the Canadian, Japan and USA women’s sides before also taking over as head coach for pro-league of the USA women.
Now, stepping back from the international stage to the club he loves, Drake said he couldn’t be more excited.
“It’s certainly exciting for me, this is my club, it’s a part of who I am and offering whatever I can to help the club members enjoy themselves and be successful, I’m really keen to do,” he said.
“I know a few of the guys really well. I started my time at the club when I was nine years old, so I know a lot of the families, I know a lot of the long-term members and I’ve been still around off and on for a while.
“I’m looking forward to being involved with my club… I just enjoy being involved and trying to be around people and be around a team and for the last little while I haven’t and I’ve really missed that.
“The opportunity came around to be involved here and I wasn’t going to pass it up. I just love the team environment, I learnt heaps when I was playing and being involved in sport. I learned how to be a good human through that.
“Now that I’m a coach, I find that I’ve got lots of experiences from my mistakes and other things that I can help others try not to make, and it’s a really nice feeling.”
Last season, the Seagulls year came to an end in the cruellest way being knocked out of the finals in a penalty shoot out when facing Doncaster in the semi finals. Drake said he believes that his squad has what it takes to take out silverware in 2024.
“I expect that if we perform to the level that I think we can, we will be right up there competing for the premiership,” he said.
“I’m certainly hopeful that we will be, and you need a lot of luck along the way, but if we do the right things more often than not, I think we have the talent to be really successful.
“I was lucky enough to play in premiership teams at this level at Altona many years ago. I’d love to help this group of guys play in one as well.
“There would be nothing better that I can think of to try and help this group of players do that.”
