By Marcus Uhe
Officer Football Club has finalised its senior coaching panel for the 2025 season, with a hybrid blend of both on-field and off-field mentors tasked with guiding the Kangaroos back to prominence.
Joining Nathan Allen is his brother, Ash, set to take the defensive line as a playing-coach, while Mark Seedsman will lead the forwards for another year.
From the bench, club legend and 323-gamer Kable Dowsett will join respected junior football coach Tim Ferguson and five-time Narre Warren premiership player Josh Tonna in managing the magnets and rotations while providing an alternate perspective from the sidelines.
Tonna and Nathan Allen are close mates, having played together at Narre Warren earlier in Allen’s playing career, and filled in as a runner for the Magpies at times in 2024, having called time on his playing career after his last premiership in 2022.
Allen said Dowsett expressed a desire to reintegrate himself with the club once more, while Ferguson brings an impressive pedigree from local Coates Talent League clubs.
“He’s (Ferguson) coached a lot of junior footy and done a lot of representative footy,” Allen said.
“The club really wanted to get him involved because he has coached their juniors and he’s very well respected around there.
“A couple of other people I know were trying to get him as an assistant coach as well, so I’m pretty happy he committed to us.
“He should be huge for me on the bench.”
Outside of the Allen brothers, Officer has not made a point of ‘winning’ the offseason by announcing a swag of new faces committing via social media posts.
Joining the Allen brothers is Max Welsh, a key position player from Orbost Snowy Rovers, but an internal directive from the powers at be at Starling Road saw a heavy focus on re-signing the majority of its abundance of talented youth and senior players.
Among the key names to recommit include captain, Brent Moloney, Sam Hoghton, Josh Westra, Jake Gains, Antonio Quach, Ryan Hutton, Lachlan Ward and Tyler Canute.
Officer’s reserves won the Division One premiership in 2023 and its Under 19s side reached the grand final in 2024 against Pakenham, after finishing fourth and winning a pair of sudden-death finals to reach the last day of the season.
Allen declared that everyone is beginning preseason this week with a clean slate, having intentionally steered away from match footage and opinions of his playing stocks.
“We just want to add a little bit of experience around these young guys, whether that’s to help him on the training track or whether it’s on-field, we just see where everyone’s at, really,” he said.
“We haven’t gone too hard (recruiting), the footy operations guys have been pretty happy with the young list and talent we’ve got, it’s about bringing them on and giving them opportunity.
“Knowing what’s coming through, they (football operations staff) don’t really want to turn these kids away because they see that we’ve recruited five or six and they think they’re not going to pay senior footy.
“It’s about keeping the local guys together and hopefully happy and hopefully that brings results on the field.
“Hopefully the senior guys around the young kids can hopefully bring them on a little bit.”
Officer blew a gilt-edged chance to qualify for the top six this season in the Outer East Football Netball’s Premier Division, having hovered around the mark for much of the year and finishing three points back from sixth place come season’s end, with seven wins and 11 losses.
A slide late in the year saw the club make the shock decision to part ways with former coach Daniel Charles, while Brenton Hillard will ply his trade at Warragul Industrials after one excellent season at Rob Porter Recreation Reserve.
