Daniel Healy the latest ex-Saint in the coaching ranks...

[evertonfc]

That's another one of our old boys breaking in elsewhere...

All the best, Dan.

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By Daniel Brettig
ADELAIDE, Oct 11 AAP - The shadow of Ben Cousins hanging over the AFL was evident today when Port Adelaide officially filled out their coaching roster for 2008.
The appointment of former forward line coach Tony McGuinness as midfield coaching partner for Matthew Primus had been widely tipped, but it was the announcement of ex-St Kilda wingman Daniel Healy as development manager that Port seemed intent on pushing the hardest.
Healy, also a schoolteacher, will oversee the Allan Scott Academy, a finishing school on football and life designed to keep the Power on the cutting edge of development - and as far as possible from the cultural and behavioural problems that have dogged West Coast.
The academy had been announced midway through the 2007 season when Scott indicated he wanted to "re-shape" - read downgrade - his sponsorship of the Power, but football operations manager Peter Rohde said the Cousins issue had hurried it along.
"Every club in the country is upping the ante as much as they can. We don't brag we have all the solutions in that area to it all. We're sitting here hoping we do the best we can," he told reporters at Alberton today.
"We have a responsibility, as everyone in society does, to make sure we develop people who make the best choices.
"There's absolutely no doubt every football operations manager, every CEO and every board in the country are very aware of their responsibilities in trying to make sure we manage those issues, and having someone specifically responsible for managing development players is a part of that, and we've discussed with Daniel about all those issues."
Rohde conceded it was fair to suggest football clubs had not taken development roles entirely seriously in the past, but said that now Healy's new role would be "as important as any in the football department".
Healy said clubs, particularly in the years when he played AFL, had been guilty of letting player education and development slip through the cracks in the pursuit of winning.
"Certainly 10 years ago at St Kilda it was a bit of lip service. We'd say we were doing development but it was all about winning," he said.
"But I think Port and a couple of other clubs have recognised that someone needs to be developing the young kids so when they get out there they're ready to go."

[cowboy18]

The Allan Scott Academy


Motto "You were wrong"

[GrumpyOne]

Thought Healy had been coaching at a lower level in SA for a couple of years?

The Academy seems a good concept though.

[n1ck]

"Certainly 10 years ago at St Kilda it was a bit of lip service. We'd say we were doing development but it was all about winning."

More to come, perhaps?

[osama milne laden]

last Gardiner medallist