Hutchison building his Big V Men’s squad for 2024

Greg Hutchison has lived a full footballing life.

96 games with Melbourne as a player, followed by a long and successful coaching career which included Prahran in the VFA (where he led them to a premiership), a caretaker stint with Melbourne, an Assistant role at Richmond, VFL senior coaching at Casey and time with St Kilda as Footy Manager before taking the reins at Old Brighton in 2015.

His eight-year tenure with the Tonners delivered a B-Grade premiership in 2017 and an A-Grade Grand Final in 2022 before taking the job as the VAFA’s Big V Men’s coach in 2023.

“When I first got the offer, it was quite emotional,” recalls Hutchison. “It’s a great honour. I’ve done a lot of things in footy, but I’d never coached the Big V.

“And from a pure footy perspective, it’s such a fantastic opportunity to work with really talented footballers. The standard of the VAFA keeps improving every year. We have good development programs and a healthy blend of youth and experience across our competition.”

The Big V Men’s initial squad of 40 will be announced next Monday and the depth of quality up and down the leagues makes the Big V selection process that much more difficult. But, according to Hutchison, it’s a great problem to have.

“We have a lot more availability this season and firstly, we’re keen to encourage and reward winners from last year.”

The Big V defeated Perth Football League by 19 points in an extra time classic in 2023.

“We looked to get representatives from Premier Men’s, B and C last season and we’ve had a team of scouts watching games each week. The support from clubs and coaches has been outstanding. Coaches quite rightly see Big V selection as a feather in the cap of their club, which it absolutely is.”

In terms of selection philosophy, ‘Best Available’ is the starting point but it isn’t the only factor.

“We’ve also got to get the right balance of talls, smalls and rotations,” explains Hutchison.

“We could pick 12 worthy midfielders, for example – but how would we fit them all in? We have to be position-specific at times, which means there will be some unlucky players as we can’t squeeze them all in. It makes trimming of the squad really difficult.”

Hutchison and his coaching panel are also mindful of the opposition and the conditions.

“We’ll be playing on a bigger ground in WA and you always need run over there so we can’t be too big or slow.”

In terms of game style, Hutchison realises that the rep footy process doesn’t lend itself to over-complication.

“We’ll probably have 4 training sessions with ball in hand, so we won’t be reinventing a game plan. We’ll have a team structure to play within, but these blokes already know how to play. It’s about getting to know each other and fast-tracking that chemistry and cohesion.

“Forward cohesion tends to take a little longer. Backs get their match-ups and most clubs play a similar system. But up forward, do we go with genuine small forwards that create more chaos or do we rotate mids forward to create extra midfield run?

“Last year I used two rucks for the first time in my coaching career and both played well, so we’re giving that some thought too. One thing’s for sure – we’re gonna have a really strong squad!”

The VAFA Big V Men’s squad will be announced on VAFA.com.au at 1pm on Monday May 27.