Heading into our first home tournament in 25 years, SAMMNA are excited to announce our Head Coaching team for the 2020 Southern Dragons Squad. It is a priority for the Association to build a culture of success and put forward a highly competitive and succesful playing group for the 2020 AMMNA Championships. This starts with the Coaching team. We are excited to see the experience and knowlege this coaching team will bring to the Southern Dragons Squad.

Open Men's Head Coach - Brian Lines

SAMMNA would like to announce our Open Men's Head Coach - Brian Lines. Brian has a rich history of coaching elite netball in South Australia, recent coaching credits include State Premier Division Head Coach and the SA ANL Southern Force Head Coach. Brian holds a High Performance Coach Accreditation, Elite Coaching Accreditation and has also been a player in our SA Men's Team from 2000 - 2005. We are thrilled to have Brian on board for 2020 and to see the experience he brings to our Open Men's team.

When told of his appointment Brian said:

“I am really looking forward to working with the athletes, coaches and administrators of SAMMNA in preparation for the tournament in 2020.  I have watched closely the work that has taken place to provide boys and men in SA an opportunity to play our great sport and am pleased to help this progression in our on court ability, to challenge those much larger states. 

 

We all want to represent our state in whatever field we undertake and Mens' netball is no different.

 

To have the opportunity to work with the best men’s netballers in SA is an exciting one. The challenges as we prepare for 2020 will be great and I trust that those committed athletes are also prepared to embrace the challenges and expectations I will bring as a High Performance Coach.

 

SAMMNA want to be a state to be feared at Nationals and to get there requires a lot of work. Its exciting!”  

Open Mixed Head Coach - Matt Brooks

Joining us for his third tour, we are happy to announce Matt Brooks will be continuing on in his role as Head Coach for the Open Mixed team. Matt first joined the Southern Dragons squad as Head Coach of our Reserve Mixed side. He then progressed to coach our 2019 Open Mixed side. Matt also has experience coaching at a local level in the AMND Competition, most recenty coaching AMND and A Grade for Metro Jets. Matt has a long history of playing both men's and mixed netball and brings first hand knowledge to our playing group. We are excited to see what Matt can achieve with the 2020 playing group.

When asked what his goals for the 2020 Open Mixed team are, Matt responded "goals for the team this tournament are to continue to grow and improve from last tournament and to continue to push pride in performance as we battle for position in finals. It should be considered an honour to wear our state colours."

Reserve Men Head Coach - Alex Duncan

Alex has been an important part of the Southern Dragons coaching team in previous years, as Co-Head Coach of our Open Men's team in 2019 and Head Coach of our Reserve Men's team in 2018. We are happy to annouce she will be re-joining us for 2020 as Head Coach for our Reserve Men's team. Alex recently attained her Intermediate Coaching Accreditation and also coaches netball at a local level as Garvillle AMND Head Coach. She has also has a long history with SAMMNA, being part of our playing group since 2013. We look forward to the skills Alex will bring to the Reserve Men's team this year.

23 & Under Men's Head Coach - Steven McInnes

Another coach we are proud to have on board again this year is our President, Steven McInnes. Steve has played a huge and vital part in the growth of men's and mixed netball in South Australia and continues that growth by re-joining us as the 23 & Under Men's Head Coach. Steve has not only played Men's Netball at the highest level in the world, but also is a highly experienced coach. Recently Steve has been Assistant Coach for the Oakdale Netball Club Premier League Reserve team and in 2016 and 2018 was the Australian Sonix (Men's team) Assistant Coach. Inprevious years Steve has coached our 23 & Under Men's team and our Open Mixed team.

On accepting his position as Head Coach for the 23 & Under team, Steve said: 

As the most successful Dragons team at the 2019 Championship, I once again look forward to the challenge of working with the 23 & Under team to further improve themselves as players. As a group we aim to go one better and win our way through to a Grand final at home. 

17 & Under Men's Head Coach - Mark Goreham & Sonia Roberts

We see a new coaching team come on-board to coach our 17 & Under Men's team: Mark Goreham and Sonia Roberts.

Mark has been part of our Southern Dragons playing team since 2016 and is now excited to share his experience as Head Coach for the 17 & Under team. Mark takes on this role with a ragne of coaching experiences under his belt. Earlier this year he was selected as Assistant Coach for the Australian 17 & Under Men's team and will tour with them later this month to compete at the New Zealand Men's Nationals. Mark is the Head Coach of the Open A Netball team at Scotch College, competing in the top level IGSSA league in Adelaide. Locally, Mark also has experience coaching as Assistant Coach for the Garville Netball Club AMND team and has coached the Scotch College Boys team to the statewide year 8/9 boys title in 2018. We look forward to Mark's experience of coaching junior players and as a current player himself. He will play a vital role in developing our junior team as future Open Men's players.

Sonia joins the Southern Dragons Coaching Team as Co-Head Coach with Mark. The pair have succesfully coached many junior teams together at Scotch College, particularly the year 8/9 boys team, who they coached to a state championship title. Sonia is a results orientated sports administrator and coach with over 10 years experience. She challenges and inspires young netballers to have a passion for the sport and to reach their full potential. Sonia has experience working as part of a team to create a learning and performance culture. Not only has she coached at Scotch College, she has also coached players at Matrics Netball Club and Colonel Light Gardens Netball Club. We are excited to have Sonia as part of the Southern Dragons team and look forward to the professionalism and passion she will bring to the team.

SAMMNA congratulates all of these coaches on their appointments and have full confidence each and every one will contribute a great level of professionalism, knowledge and experience to the 2020 playing group. Our selection committee are finalising Head Coaches for our Reserve Mixed and 20 & Under Men's teams. These will be announced once confirmed.

Trials for the 2020 Championships begin Sunday 8th September and registration is open now. For further details and to register, click here.