Casey Scorpions coach Greg Hutchison believes last week’s news that St Kilda will be switching VFL alliances to Sandringham next season will have no effect on his players’ focus for the rest of the year.By Marc McGowan
CASEY Scorpions coach Greg Hutchison has quashed suggestions his team will be adversely affected by the news St Kilda will be aligning with Sandringham next season.
The Saints announced last Thursday that they were ending their seven-year partnership with the Scorpions to “cement an ownership of the Bayside growth corridor”.
The timing of the announcement came with more than half of this Victorian Football League season still to be played.
The decision also means that by next season Casey will have had three head coaches in as many years.
But Hutchison is adamant this will not be a problem for his players.
“I can’t control that and they (the players) can’t control it,” he said.
“What they can worry about is what they do in terms of their training preparation, the way they go about their game and the way they attack the footy.
“That’s all they can worry about – they can’t worry about anything else that’s going on.
“Running around and putting your head over the ball has got nothing to do with an alignment, so that’s what they need to focus on.”
Hutchison spoke with the players about the announcement in the lead-up to the Geelong match and is satisfied it will have no impact on them.
Sandringham president Gerard Ryan conceded the timing was less than perfect, but hoped the players could deal with the difficult circumstances.
“It really shows the strength of a club how they handle situations like this. It’s not an ideal scenario,” he said.
“What I said to Melbourne and Sandringham football clubs was that in 2000, when we were first in alignment together, we won a premiership and we should try to finish the alignment with another premiership.”
Melbourne football manager Chris Connolly described the timing as “awkward”, while Scorpions football manager Brian Woodman believes his club’s players will be fine if they adopt the “one match at a time” philosophy.
