Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes will have Jeremy Rowe and Nelson Foley at the helm for next season

Rowe was excited to sign on for his fifth season at the helm and particularly looking forward to working alongside Foley who will be relocating to Wagga for the position.

"I'm really excited now that the decision has been made and we've nutted through everything to recommit to the club for a fifth year," Rowe said.

"Particularly happy to be recommitting in a joint coaching structure with Nelson, just with my unique personal circumstances and travelling from Canberra, it was definitely something that needed to be looked at in regards of being able to make a fifth season work.

"Being able to attract such a quality footballer and leader in Nelson to partner with moving forward is very exciting and the the fact that he and his partner Alana are committing to the club in a way where they will be relocating to Wagga early in the new year shows how committed they are to the cause.

"That's definitely given me personally a lot of energy moving forward and the way that Nelson and I will work together and already working together is something that we can all be really excited about."

MORE SPORT NEWS:

Foley signed on at the Goannas just before the end of June and played six games for MCUE in which he was in their best on five occasions.

After only spending a couple of months at the club, Foley said he was caught a bit by surprise at the opportunity offered to him, but was looking forward to stepping up to the coaching role next season alongside Rowe.

"I am absolutely looking forward to it," Foley said.

"It probably came out of the blue for me, but as soon as I got the offer and started thinking about it I've been so excited.

"I was never really going to say no, I'm very excited."

With Foley relocating to Wagga early in 2023, Rowe was looking forward to spending less time commuting between Canberra and Mangoplah and handing over more responsibility to Nelson next season.

"This year I thankfully got a lot of assistance from Trent Cohalan which I appreciate no end," he said.

"But outside of the time I was recovering from my achilles surgery, I was probably at around 95 per cent of the training sessions and I just wouldn't be able to back that up again.

"Nelson, our leaders and coaches will be 100 per cent responsible for Tuesday nights this year and I will look to attend training in Canberra with our travelling contingent on that night.

"We will then work together to get the best result possible for our players both on Thursday night and on game day."

The promotion of Foley as a playing co-coach replicates similar approaches from other Riverina League teams with Collingullie-Glenfield Park and Coolamon both utilising a co-coaching system with a playing and non-playing coach this past season.

While looking forward to working alongside Foley as co-coaches next season, Rowe is also excited to see what the talented midfielder can accomplish on the field next year.

"There is obviously quite a bit of responsibility on Nelson to be the best player that he can possibly be as well," he said.

"So I think it is the case of having a bit of an older head who is in a non playing capacity there to work with an on-field leader.

"We really think it is a great opportunity for us to progress our group with Nelson's strong on-field leadership.

"Just getting that dynamic right between there being some new ideas brought to the table from Nelson and bit of a new voice to the group.

"But also wanting to make sure that Nelson can still have every opportunity to focus on his game and be the best player that he can possibly be.

"We are really looking forward to having him not just in the coaching capacity, but in a playing capacity for a full season as well."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: