Earl Byrne says it is a privilege to be able to return ‘home’ to
Sunshine as coach of the Baseball Victoria summer league division 1
club.
Byrne has spent five years away from the Eagles to dip his toes into the coaching waters as player-coach at the Werribee Giants.
But the planets have aligned for a homecoming for the 41-year-old
this season. Previous Eagles coach Shaun Moore told the club of his
intention to step down from the position at the end of last season. At
the time Byrne believed that he had taken the Giants as far as he could
in a mutually beneficial relationship.
“I’ve spent most of my life there [at Sunshine] so I find it a
privilege to be able to go back to the club I grew up at,” he told the Weekly.
“It’s funny, at the AGM when they announced I was going to be
coach I had a bit of a speech worked out for the people that mightn’t
have known me.
“I walked in and it kind of threw my speech out of the window because every single person in the place knew me.”
Byrne has enjoyed a decorated playing and coaching career.
As a player, he represented Australia and made it on the rosters
of the Melbourne Monarchs and Melbourne Bushrangers in the Australian
Baseball League. Byrne also made a splash in the US, playing in the
minor leagues at the Chicago Cubs, just falling short of the majors.
As coach at the Giants, he took a young team to the top flight of
Victorian baseball, but he admits that after five years at the helm, it
was time for a new voice.
“I felt I was getting a bit stale at Werribee and my message wasn’t getting across as much as it used to,” he said.
“It was time for a change and they need to head in a new direction.
“I was going to be heading back to Sunshine this year to kick around in the thirds or fourths anyway.
“The opportunity came up, they rang me and asked if I would like to coach. I didn’t even take two seconds to think about it.”
This season, the first division will be split into two conferences – north-west and south-west.
The Eagles will play in the newly structured north-west conference, featuring Doncaster, Essendon, Geelong, Preston and Newport.
Teams will play each team in their conference three times and inter-league teams twice in a shorter 27-game season.
The new season will begin on October 6.
