ROBERT Hyde has been appointed coach of the Northern Football League’s senior representative side.
A three-time Division 1 premiership coach with Greensborough, Hyde is one of the most revered figures within the NFL.
Despite stepping away from club coaching following the Boro’s 2014 premiership success, Hyde assisted Jason Heatley during last year’s interleague campaign – where the NFL fell to a five-point defeat to the VAFA.
He now takes on the top job after Heatley relinquished the position to focus on his assistant coaching role at Heidelberg.
“I’m really looking forward to it. It’s got me buzzed up having my own team for a game,” Hyde told NFL.org.au.
“Just to be able to train and be in charge of a game again, I’m certainly looking forward to it.”
The Northern Football League will travel away to the Peninsula Football Netball League (PFNL) on Saturday, May 21 in the revamped 2016 WorkSafe AFL Victoria Community Championships.
The state-wide senior representative championships will involve most leagues in Victoria, replacing the AFL Victoria Metropolitan Championships, which have been played at Carlton’s IKON Park in March for the past two years.
The NFL has fixtured a bye across its three senior competitions for the weekend of May 21-22 to ensure clubs are not disadvantaged by having a player/(s) selected to represent the league.
Hyde said the new interleague format would allow the NFL selection panel to assess the form of new players to the league, before settling on a final squad.
“Because it was pre-season last year, you virtually based it on the previous team of the year and the players you know,” he said.
“(That will be) a starting point again – we’ll look at the three divisions’ teams of the year, but it also gives you that six or seven weeks, even eight to 10 with practice matches, to see who’s in form.
“It allows the (Patrick) Karnezis’, the (David) Ellards, the (Nick) Carnells, the new blokes at Heidelberg, all these new blokes a chance to impress and us the chance to mix and match.
“But we also don’t want to just wipe out players who have been loyal to the Northern Football League and have been great players for a long period of time.
“We’ll sustain those blokes, but there is some really good, exciting talent coming in and we’ll try to mix that in as well.”
An announcement on the preliminary training squad is not expected until March, with Hyde planning a six-week training block before the May 21 match-up.
“It’s a funny one because we trained last year while the players were all doing pre-season and their practice match schedule,” he said.
“Now they would’ve played six games, so we’ll have to be mindful that they’re training, but I’d like to have five or six sessions and maybe that final week we’ll train twice because everybody else has got a bye.
“We’ll work it in so that they get a good start with their clubs, but also so that we get a good feel for them over a six-week training period.”
An announcement on Hyde’s coaching panel will be announced at a later date.
