The opportunity to build his own program was too good to refuse for new Tarneit coach James Foord.
Foord, who played in Tarneit’s first season, was earlier this month announced as the Titans new coach for next year’s Western Football League season.
With an extensive background in football, Foord said he was keen to have an opportunity to coach his own side was something he was looking forward to.
“It’s super exciting,” he said. “It was a nice opportunity to come home.
“I’d been talking to [captain] Zach [Thornton] for a while about footy stuff. I was looking what was next outside of working in footy.
“I wanted to take that next step. I wanted to do more development and coaching and build something.”
The fact the club is just down the road from his parents place further adds to the attraction.
Foord said he still knew many people around the club and was still close to a lot of people.
He said the club had come a long way since he played in that first season.
“We didn’t have a junior program outside of Auskick,” he said. “I’m excited to come back and there’s juniors coming through and we can build a lot of things, there’s that connectivity now.”
Foord comes back to the Titans from Ivanhoe in the Northern Football League where he was an assistant coach.
He said he loved his time at Ivanhoe with the club having some success in the men’s and women’s programs.
Foord said the Titans will be a new challenge.
“It was an amazing opportunity, I’m now looking to have the chance to build something of my own,” he said.
“I have a nice handover of data points and they are really young and have got a few older heads.
“There’s a lot of talent already and some young kids are coming through. The under-18s have been quite successful and made finals which is a massive step for the club.”
Foord brings a high level of football experience to the Titans. He was a strength conditioning coach at North Melbourne, Gold Coast and Essendon’s AFLW programs.
He was Essendon’s men’s strength and conditioning coach from 2022 to 2023 and was Collingwood’s Victorian Football League academies’ high performance lead the past two seasons
.Ford said he would look to bring a bit of structure on and off field.
“There will be non-negotiables with being involved with the community and injury prevention things,” he said.
“I’ll be keen to get control early on with standards and how we train and now we go about things.
“How can we be a little more aggressive and ramp things up.“
