D’Andrea leads new-look Panther coaching panel in Premier C

The excitement of progressing to Premier C has intensified at Old Mentonians with the recent announcement of new senior coach, Steve D’Andrea.

A former senior assistant and development coach at St Bedes/Mentone Tigers, D’Andrea will be joined by former Tigers mentor and VAFA representative coach, Mick Dwyer, as well as former Tigers assistant, Jamie Shanahan.

The Panthers took their game to a new level in 2016 and won their first four matches by more than 100 points before falling to Old Geelong in the Division 1 Grand Final by just eight points.

Read the Old Mentonians’ announcement below:

“It gives us great pleasure to officially announce the new coach and senior coaching panel for OMFC for season 2017.

Steve D’Andrea will be our 2017 senior and head coach for season 2017.

Steve is very excited about the opportunity and challenge that is presented and as a club we couldn’t be more excited about having him on board.

Steve comes to us from St Bede’s/Mentone Tigers after more than 10 years within their coaching ranks. This experience was in a variety of roles from junior roles including premiership success all the way through to success as a senior assistant for the senior side. This was as recently as just this year making the Premier B Grand Final and helping them once again gain promotion to the Premier section.

We believe our club will be in great hands as he brings a great knowledge of local football, an ability to build relationships, an ability to develop and work with the young players, a club first attitude as well as his coaching ability. This all points to him making a massive impact on this club and help guide us successfully through the grades over the next few years.

We also welcome two new faces who will join Steve as assistant coaches; the first being Mick Dwyer who played a lot of football at AFL level.

He has also most recently come to us from St Bedes/Mentone Tigers where he was senior coach from 2012-15, including an A-Grade Grand Final in 2013.

He has also been head coach at Old Haileybury from 2000-04 and has been a VAFA representative coach and All-Australian coach numerous times.

Jamie Shanahan is the third introduction who also played at AFL level, finishing up in 2000.

Jamie has also coached at senior level including Ainslie FC in 2001-02, Haileybury 2008-09. He was also an assistant coach at Sandringham VFL during the three-peat of premierships in 2003-05.

Most recently, he was an assistant coach with St Bedes/Mentone Tigers during 2012-15 under Mick Dwyer.

The Club welcomes these new faces as they will be massive influences in taking this club forward with a wealth of knowledge and experience as mentioned above.

They will join Paul Hodges and Terry Brennan who will remain in their roles with the club which we are also excited about.

The club also looks forward to adding Under 19s and a women’s football side for the first time in 2017.

All details for pre-season training will be out very shortly along with the chance to meet the new coaches.”