Harper Sercombe
Parkside Spurs have found their replacement for former coach Tara Morgan.
Callan Tenabel will lead the Spurs for the 2024 Western Region Football League season.
Tenabel arrives back at the club he played four seasons of senior football at with an extensive background coaching junior football teams.
He has spent time within the Essendon District Football League with Ascot Vale’s under 14 girls as well as coaching the league’s girl’s interleague side. He also spent some time within school football coaching Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School’s girls team and the Overnewton boys team.
“I’m really looking forward to it, it’s a good positive change,” Tenabel said.
“Being around Parkside, I still feel like the saying ‘once a Parksider, always a Parksider’ that gets put around is pretty genuine even after not having played for them for 10 years.
“My philosophy is on building on skills, whether they’re already quite skilled and getting more advanced techniques, or if they’re juniors starting from scratch, the key thing is building a baseline of the fundamental skills and building on that each week.
“Then focusing on that progression during games. If we’re focused on teaching tackling techniques, then we can make it more advanced to focus on tackling for turnovers and then make it more advanced in terms of tackling with greater intent and more number and more frequency.”
To assist Tenabel the club announced long-time club stalwart Jax Lemauga as senior assistant coach as she hangs up the boots.
“Next year cannot come fast enough, as a club we have so much to be excited about. The conversations, plans and return of some key players will all see Parkside Spurs as true contenders for premiership glory,” Lemauga said via social media.
“She’s a really strong communicator, the girls see her as a leader around the club, she’s obviously played a lot of football as well, so I think us teaming up will have success,” Tenabel said.
While the Spurs played division 1 finals last season, there was a clear gap in the competition between where they finished in fourth and Caroline Springs in third.
Tenabel said while he obviously wants to be amongst the September action once again, his goal is closing the gap in the competition.
“Our goal is to push the other teams and to be far more competitive with the top couple of teams,” he said.
The club currently has a solid crop of mature and experienced players, however Tenabel said he is hoping on growing and developing the youth.
“We’re looking to build on the base of players that we have,” he said.
“We’re really seeking other players, experienced and not experienced, that would like to come to a great club.
“There’s a good baseline of middle aged players but we’d love to get some more youth and run in our team and that’s what I’ll be looking forward to recruiting over the coming months.”
If you are interested in joining the Spurs, they are running three sessions over the next two weeks, on November 22, 29 and December 6, at Walter St Reserve from 6:40-7:45pm. For more information you can reach Callan Tenabel on 0412 318 777.
