By Marcus Uhe
Over the Christmas period, the News’ sports team will be re-sharing some of the most popular stories from over the course of 2024.
Thank you for supporting our newspapers over the course of the year. We hope you enjoy the selection and have a wonderful holiday period, however you choose to celebrate.
Steven Kidd began the year wanting to build another great Narre Warren team.
But before he could lay the foundations, he had to conquer his fears.
Of failure, of letting people down, of not reaching the heights set by Chris Toner, Shane Dwyer, Matt Shinners and many more that came before him as head coach of the mighty Magpies.
This club means so much to Kidd, and the thought of not doing it justice led him to question his legitimacy as a potential coach, knowing that only premiership success would conquer the anxiety.
There was no doubting his credentials as the man in-charge – in 2016 he was crowned the best coach in Gippsland at the region’s Community and Coaches Awards in just his second year in charge at Warragul.
As a line coach with the Magpies in recent years, he’d developed relationships with the playing group, knew the squad inside-out and knew the landscape he would be walking into, of not only the club, but the league and the competition within.
It seemed the only person that needed convincing was Kidd himself.
“You worry if you can keep the standard to where it is, and I think that would be same for any coach of this club,” he said on Saturday night.
“Coaching this club, (being) runners up, you’ve still done well, but premierships are what are expected here.
“At the end of the day, my 11-year-old son was the one that said ‘go do it, Dad’.
“Knowing myself as well, whenever I do something, I’m in 100 per cent.
“I knew it would take a fair bit of time and all that, but it’s great to have that all come back.”
Players have warmed to him, and it’s not hard to see why.
From allowing them the flexibility to manage their rotations on gut-feel, to picking Trent Papworth on his own assessment of his calf injury, and never wavering in his belief, Kidd has his players’ backs just as much as they have his.
After a series of poor opening quarters in recent weeks, he tweaked the pregame routine to limit the players’ time to themselves, and not allow the nervous energy to fester, resulting in one of their best first quarters of the season with six goal to two.
The relationship strengthened over the preseason when a host of names had departed the club to ply their trade elsewhere, from the last two Shane Smith Medal winners, in Jake Richardson and Tom Miller, to Lachlan Benson, Cameron Miller, Ryan Patterson, Ryan Quirk and Harrison Brain.
Kidd hauled the remaining senior group – Tom Toner, Joel Zietsman, Kurt Mutimer, Peter Gentile, Brad Scalzo, Mitch Tonna – into the change rooms one night and outlined how they could shape the future.
Rather than bemoan what was leaving and what they had lost, the players were encouraged to embrace the opportunity.
“That meeting we had in October/November when we had a few blokes leave, he was one of the ones that sat us down and said ‘we’re going to have to bite the bullet here,’” Papworth recalled of the gathering.
“He’s never given up on anyone, even when we did have people leaving and what-not.
“He never had no belief and he’s had that all year with us.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Zietsman, a man who worked closely with Kidd as his senior co-captain.
“He’s been huge for the playing group and he gives us the ultimate belief that we can go out there and play the way we play,” he said.
“He rallied us all together and showed massive belief.
“He didn’t let us get too ahead of ourselves, he kept us grounded.”
Kidd’s recollection of that fateful summer night was seen as the beginning of something special, and recalled the events before Saturday’s grand final as a reminder of how far they had come over the last 10 months.
That night, he told them “we can do this,” and 10 months later, his conviction was vindicated.
When the final siren sounded on Saturday, the tears welled immediately as he and his assistant coaches and great mates embraced in the highest of hugs.
Upon receiving the premiership cup on Saturday alongside his co-captains, he declared the club “one of the best in Victoria”, and later revealed that winning a flag as coach was the latest in a series of black and white inspired dreams since he was a teenager that had come true– from just playing senior football, to playing in a premiership and now as the main man.
The success of the whole club, in both netball and football, fuelled his belief, and to play a part in it himself, made the statement extra special.
“It’s not just about the senior footy, it’s about the Reserves winning three in a row, the 19s had a great year, and the netball as well,” he said.
“They (the netballers) have been faced with adversity and changing leagues with the netballers is a big thing – they could have easily not been as happy with it, but they’ve got up as well.
“The fear of failure was there, but to now have been able to achieve it, it’s a really great feeling.”
