IMPERIALS have parted ways with senior football coach Mark Wheatley after the SFNL club missed out on playing finals this season.
Imperials Football Netball Club president Chris Sharman said that Wheatley, who took over as coach from Brad Hards and Ryan Doherty this year, had advised him he would be returning to his family farm closer to Melbourne.
However, this is at odds with what Wheatley told Sunraysia Daily after the team’s round 17 loss to Irymple, when he said: “I would like to stay on, because I think there’s unfinished business there”.
“If we can land a couple of recruits in a few key areas, then we’ll be well placed going forward,” Wheatley said just over a fortnight ago.
Sharman said on Tuesday that “we’ve just started a search for a new coach”.
“I don’t want to say who the candidates are at this stage, but we’ll be targeting certain people for the coaching role and also positions in the team,” he said.
One name being bandied about as a replacement for Wheatley is former Essendon player Matt Dea, an ex-Mildura junior who was picked up by Richmond in the 2009 AFL national draft.
Dea played 31 games for the Tigers between 2010-15 before joining the Bombers in 2016, making 39 appearances before calling it quits in 2019.
Sharman said he had no beef with Red Cliffs over its senior coaching appointment of Doherty over the past week.
“I spoke with (Red Cliffs club president) Tony Marciano about 10 months ago and said to him, ‘Go for it, (Ryan’s) a great bloke’,” he said.
“This was after we’ve decided to go in a different coaching direction.”
