Family
I’M 62 and I’ve lived in Cohuna all my life. My wife, Shelley, works at Factory and Field in Cohuna. I’ve got two boys, Rhys, 30, and Tyla, 26, and a beautiful 19-month-old granddaughter, Lila. She’s gorgeous – up and about and starting to talk. I spend as much time with her as I can.
Work and coronavirus
I’M a bricklayer. Because we were considered an essential service in the construction industry we were able to keep going through that first period when the coronavirus hit. Work’s been a bit sketchy since. You’ll go for a run of four or five weeks then you’ll have nothing for a couple of weeks. I think six months down the track is when things might come to a screeching halt maybe. It’s all a bit uncertain, isn’t it?
Shelley has got severe rheumatoid arthritis. Her immune system is terrible and she has had to go home and self-isolate for I’d reckon five or six weeks.
Football and coaching
I played for Cohuna Football Club. There were two clubs in town then – Union and Cohuna. Cohuna had a red and white strip.
Once I finished my football career in around ’94 or ’95, I jumped on the committee and they needed a coach for the under 17s, so I started there. I coached there for four or five years then coached the reserves for another few years then I coached the seniors and finally went back and coached the seconds again, I think.
I spent over four years as coach at Koondrook-Barham – that was 2013, 14, 15 and 16. Then I came back and I was running the fence for Cohuna when the coach Scott Beattie, who was a ripping fella and a good coach, got too busy with his work. I was just sort of standing there and they said, “Would you do it?” and I said, “Well I won’t leave you short,” so away we went again. That was in 2018.
The side
IT’S been fantastic. Just a pity we couldn’t get on the park this year because last year we had a reasonable side. Knowing full well we couldn’t get any injuries because we didn’t have the depth, we performed pretty well until around eight weeks out, then – like most other clubs – we got some injuries to our really good players. When you haven’t got the depth – well we sort of fell away in terms of performance, but I was pretty happy because we were working on recruiting players back.
This year we’ve secured five or six of our really good players back and we would’ve had a really good side if we could get on the park, but I don’t think we will.
There’s a couple of guys who went to Melbourne, and it’s always hard, once they have had a taste of the Melbourne life, to get those young blokes back. But we secured a couple of those guys and there was a couple of guys from Bendigo we’d been after for a while too.
Rhys Free was training with North Melbourne and playing with Rochester and we secured his service, and Tyson Farrant was down in Melbourne too. Daniel Coates was playing at Leitchy-Gunny. Jake Vandongen – he’s another one that was at Leitchville. He’s come back. Regan Williams is another player back in the fold. He was up in Queensland but he decided to come home.
Also, our under 17s, the Colts, have won maybe five out of the last seven premierships, and I’m a really big fan of playing the young blokes if they’re up to it. And out of those guys last year we identified four or five to play senior football, and we relied on those guys too because they’re local boys from local families. There’s Dylan Hird, Oscar Cooke and Patrick Doyle. And Xavier Mitchell and Josh Treacy, who are both Cohuna boys but are down with the Pioneers in Bendigo in the under 18s competition. Josh Treacy’s been made a captain of the Bendigo Pioneers. Whenever they’ve got a bi down there they release the guys back so they just play sporadically. But, last year they both played seniors and under 17.
The season
EVERYONE at the club was super excited pre-COVID. We recruited not only footballers but they brought their girlfriends and wives back and they give a really big boost to the netball too. The netballers have been struggling for quite a few years and that’s really starting to turn around. So as a whole, the whole club was on the upward stream.
We completed a full pre-season of training, we got through our first practice match and then the COVID thing happened. So it remains to be seen how good we could’ve been or will be.
Our club had a board meeting last week and decided there were too many restrictions on training. Under the restrictions there has to be a COVID officer to participate and document everyone at training – when they got there, when they left, how were they feeling and all that sort of stuff. Nobody was prepared to do that.
A lot of the players are doing their own running but as time wears on they begin to lose a bit of focus. I suppose because we don’t know whether we’re going to have a season or not.
We’d certainly love to put our toe in the water and test ourselves but what do you do? I’ve got a bit of age on me and I was excited with the team we had and I know the players were too. But we’re just going to have to cool our jets and sit and wait, aren’t we?
Cohuna
OVERALL the town is slowly trying to get back to normal. But the situation with COVID-19 is really hard on the businesses, isn’t it? Our businesses rely on not only the locals but the tourists and people who come through the town. So they’re doing the hard yards, really doing the hard yards, but when you speak to them they can see the end of it. Well hopefully they come out of it and don’t go to the wall but I suppose that in most towns some businesses will go under. A lot of the businesses here have been in town for years and years and years passed on by the families from one generation to the other.
We had a tragedy in town last month. Our assistant coach for the reserves, Russell McLoughlan, had a tragic accident at work. He was a ripping fella, absolute ripping fella, and he had four young blokes, four young boys. It was an absolute tragedy.
Because of the restrictions on numbers at funerals it was decided the family and the hearse would do a lap of honour. There wasn’t a car space around that Cohuna ground vacant. It was like a finals type crowd. Everybody kept their distance and just paid their respects. Got out of their car as the hearse drove by and then got back in and went home. There was a sense of bonding.
We’re like most small towns. I don’t think we’re any different to any others. But there’s a real self-worth. I think everyone’s proud of the town and proud of the people in it.
