Leigh Tudor was born to be a coach.
Since hanging up the boots at the end of his playing career, it’s all he has ever known.
From VFL level to the EDFL, the former Cat and Kangaroo has been up close with some of the game’s greatest ever players.
However, 2025 was a new experience.
Tudor led Pascoe Vale for the first seven matches of the season, but he spent the rest of the year on the sidelines.
After a successful stint in red and black, which included a breakthrough grand final appearance in 2024, it was inevitable that plenty of local clubs would be queuing up for his services.
“I thought in the end if I’m going to go and watch local footy, I might as well be involved,” Tudor said.
“Towards the end of last year, I was going to watch quite a bit of Douttas as that’s where my son plays.
“I like being involved in local footy and sitting around watching I thought I might as well give back a bit.”
That’s when Abers came knocking.
After a strong home and away season, the Rillas were bundled out of the finals in straight sets with a Luca Muratore goal after the siren sealing their fate.
The loss meant it was three years without a finals win for one of the competition’s powerhouses and Clay Illman felt his time was up.
Halfway through November, the deal was done, and Tudor was tasked with helping the club return to the top of the ladder.
“The Abers people were pretty keen to get me down here,” Tudor said.
“Adam Potter, a close mate of mine, rang and threw it out there.
“Over the next couple of weeks, I started chatting to a few of the other people and it sounded like we were going to be a nice fit.
“Their philosophy on juniors sort of suited my philosophy on football as well."
It looked like from the outset that Tudor had his work cut out for him.
After topping last year’s goalkicking tally and winning the Reynolds Medal, Callum Moore decided to head to Diggers Rest, while gun defender and homegrown product Brodie Newman moved to Shepparton United.
The side also lost plenty of valuable experience with skipper Luke Davis moving to Leitchville-Gunbower, and Karl Brown also hanging up the boots.
As they say, however, from crisis comes opportunity and the side has had no trouble filling the void.
“They lost a lot of players and that was the challenge for me and there was no pressure to perform straight away.
“They are a big club, and they want to play finals.
“With so many one pointers coming through, there was a great opportunity I thought to just build with the juniors and top up with some players that I thought we need.
“Because they are such a strong junior club it was pretty enticing to come.
“We’ve got guys who have played this year like Jackson Barber and Gus Papal that were stats boys and water boys when they were 10-11 years old and they’ve been here all their lives.”
With all the upheaval over the summer the focus was simple over the offseason.
As is the trend in modern football, Tudor wanted to start with a strong defence before moving on to the other facets of the game.
While he knew there was plenty of work to do, he has been rapt with the side’s appetite to embrace change.
“We started with defence,” he said.
“My philosophy is that we wanted to defend well and it’s a work in progress and we are still miles off where we need to be, but the boys have embraced the change of a new coach.
“The three facets of the game we are trying to get better at everything, our stoppage work, our contest work, how we use the ball out of defence, how we use the ball inside 50."
Being a rival coach for the past two seasons, Tudor had already had a close up look of Aberfeldie’s superstars.
Matthew Williamson starred in two of the three games Tudor coached against the Rillas, while Sam Medland was also among the side’s best in the three games against the Panthers in 2024 and early 2025.
Getting to watch some of the competition’s superstars up close every week was one of the reasons Tudor was so keen to call Clifton Park home.
“I’ve really liked the Aberfeldie midfield from afar,” Tudor said.
“Matty Williamson and Matt Weber have been a great players for a long time.
“Having now worked with them they’ve got a really great mindset of how they want to improve, and they are all here for the right reasons.
“They all come to training each week to try and get better and every game they are trying to improve.
“It’s been pretty impressive the determination amongst this group to try and get better.”
While the senior side hasn’t seen the same success as it did in the mid 2010s, overall, the club has never been in better shape.
Clifton Park is filled on a Thursday night with countless junior players honing their skills with Joe Misiti, while their new state-of-the-art clubrooms has become a popular meeting place.
The women as well are holding up their end of the bargain, with the side currently on top of the ladder and look set for another tilt at a premiership.
However, there is no doubt in Tudor’s mind as to why the club has been so successful.
“There are a lot of volunteers,” he said.
“I just look at the help I get with assistant coaches, that are all local boys, that have played here and once they get here, they want to stay here.
“You look at all our junior coaches, most of them have played here, all our volunteers have been here all their life.
“There’s a lot of women and girls here and it’s just a really friendly place to be and it’s a very safe space.
“I think once people get here, they seem to like being here and they stay for a long time.”
While there is still plenty of work to do there is now no doubt that Abers is back on the right track.
If the steady progress made across the early part of 2026 continues, there’s every chance Tudor’s tenure at Clifton Park will conclude with him holding up the cup at Windy Hill.
