Tara Murray
Werribee City is hoping to bounce right back in the Victorian Premier League.
The Bees will play in VPL2 next year after being relegated after this year’s season, having narrowly survived relegation a number of times in recent years.
The club has locked in Craig Moore as coach for next season, seeing him as the right man to take them forward.
Moore took over coaching the side midway through this season, just days after departing the Melbourne Knights, where he was an assistant coach.
Moore said he was excited to get to work for next year.
“We want to try and go straight back up, that is our intention,” he said. “We start pre-season next week [this week].
“The squad has about 10 new players and the players are keen to get on the park. We’ll work on getting them fit and ready to fit into our system.”
Moore said it will be a different feeling now that he has helped put the squad together and gets to do a whole pre-season with them.
He said there had been a lot of work going on behind the scenes to try and get the side back on track.
“We are having a bit of change of direction,” he said. “A bit of a culture and a bit of performance.
“Unfortunately we weren’t able to do that quick enough [and we were relegated].
“The key for us is that the club has really looked at themselves and made some significant change.”
Moore said one of the big changes they were trying to make was the identity of the club.
He said they wanted to be somewhere that players and coaches in the west wanted to come to as a place to call home.
“It’s something that the club has been saying for a while,” he said. “They have bought in young players, who are not necessarily from the west.
“That is a key focus for us. We’ll look at players and coaches from the west, but we don’t rule anyone out.
“It’s one of the boxes we want to tick going forward.”
Moore said they are likely to start announcing their new signings this week, including a new captain.
He said he can’t wait to get back on the track.
“It gets to that point after a bit of a break that you want to recharge your batteries that you’re ready to go.
“The players know there is a lot of hard work, sweat and tears before we get to the season.”
