THE Grima name has been synonymous with the recent successes of Strathmore, but the club hasn’t featured in finals since its 2014 Premier Division flag.
Nathan Grima was poised to join brothers Todd and Alex as a new recruit in 2016 but when Essendon came knocking for the ex-Kangaroo, all that was put on hold.
Twelve months on and Grima is back at Mascoma Street and has taken on one of the EDFL’s most coveted senior coaching jobs.
Taking the field alongside Grima in 2017 will be new playing assistant coach and former North Melbourne team mate, Michael Firrito.
Already boasting an impressive senior list and plenty of depth, Grima knows how important it is for Strathmore to get back into the top four.
Did the family ties help you take this job at Strathmore when it became available?
Yeah last year I signed at Strathmore just to play with my brothers. Todd had the year off in 2015 and we were planning on playing at least one year together with the three of us, so that was the plan and I followed Strathmore a lot, watching the boys as many times as I could. I was there for the Grand Final in 2014 and I had to play in a final myself the following week, so I couldn’t really enjoy that with them too much, but I always loved the thought of coming back and playing local footy and winning a premiership like those boys did and hopefully with Todd and Alex. That’s why I went there, but as it panned out Essendon came along and the plan was to go straight back to Strathmore once I finished with Essendon, and it just so happened the coaching job arose in that period as well.
What sort of coaching background are you coming from?
Obviously I haven’t coached because I’ve just stepped out of the AFL but one thing about the AFL is you get exposed to plenty of good people and good coaches. You live in it every day, learning different things and learning coaching philosophies, and I’ve always been interested in getting involved in coaching. I felt late in my career I was always involved and engaging in meetings and thinking more about what was being said and how we played to structures and game plans. Even though I was only really a role player in the AFL, I always felt comfortable enough within our group, especially at North Melbourne, to be able to engage in meetings and speak up. I just thought that when this role became available that I’d have a crack at it. When I finished at North with my back problems, I took on a role three days a week at the club. I was on the track for all of our sessions in pre-season working with the coaches and the younger guys, so I was doing some coaching already at North in a small capacity.
This is a powerful EDFL club that hasn’t made finals since that 2014 flag. Is there a sense around the club that it has under-performed in the last couple of years and does that bring some pressure to your role?
We had some recruits, including myself, leave before we even got to Round 1 and with Craig (Clinnick) leaving mid-season, it was definitely a difficult year. Dale May did a great job with the time he had, but I haven’t really looked at 2016 too much. A club like Strathmore, or any other Premier Division club, would know that finishing seventh isn’t really acceptable. We’re resourced really well, we’re located in a great area, we’ve got a huge junior base and we’re a really well-run club, so there’s no excuse to be finishing that far down. We’ve always been able to recruit pretty well and we’ve got strong juniors, so the club has said to me that finishing seventh again would be unacceptable. So we’ll put a lot of hard work in to retain all our younger guys and start building a list and a pre-season program that we hope will set the guys up for a good year.
Can we expect a new-look Strathmore on the park in 2017?
I think when any coach takes over you want to give everyone a genuine clean slate. I know it’s a bit of a cliché but for me it definitely is a clean slate with the guys. So if you’ve played senior footy before, it doesn’t mean you’ll be a walk up start. Obviously I know the guys socially but now I’ve got to earn their respect as a coach. I can’t be seen to be giving any favours, so I’ve tried to speak with everyone on the list over the last month and in catching up with the young guys, you get excited about potentially what they could do. We want to set the club up for success for the next four or five years, so for every older guy I bring in, I want to balance that with younger guys that can play around their positions and learn from them as well. We’ve got a really strong core of 20 and 21-year-olds that haven’t been exposed to a lot of senior footy, but from what I’ve seen and heard from talking to other guys at the club, they all seem more than capable of putting in the work to step up and play regular senior footy. My aim is to give everyone an opportunity first and foremost, and then the guys that work the hardest and apply themselves the most will get first crack. That’s how I’ll sell it to the boys.
Clearances have just opened. Can we expect Strathmore to make a lot of noise in this recruiting period?
I’m a big advocate for the points system in local footy. Obviously the salary cap is coming in as well but the points system in particular will balance the list. I’ve been lucky enough to spend a lot of time at North and then a small period at Essendon and if you really wanted to go out and you had unlimited points, then you could just start bringing in every guy you’ve ever played with, but then there’s no real system to your recruiting philosophy. So the way the club and I have looked at it is with the guys we will bring in, even though we want them to play, they’ll be seen as an extension of me as a coach. I want players that will be committed and train hard, but more importantly, I want quality people that will invest in the younger group. I think the true value will come from someone like Michael Firrito. While I think he’ll be a really good player in this comp, what he can teach that group of 21-year-olds during the week and on game-day will hold them in good stead for the next five or six years. While you want to recruit players to win a flag in the here and now, I think it’s important that you’ve got an eye on the future. I can’t just coach for the next few years and then leave the club in a hole just to suit my own ego by trying to win a premiership with all my mates. I’ll get more satisfaction out of doing that with a good nucleus of local boys. We want to try and play with 14 or 15 one-point players each week, and we’ve got a group of about 25 one-point players. So we’ll try to recruit three or four new players like every club, but I don’t want that to impact on the younger players' ability to get a game.
