Local footy has been quite the journey for Brodie Holland.
Since hanging up the boots back in 2008 after 11 seasons at the top level, the former Collingwood and Fremantle small forward has just about done it all at suburban level.
It all started when the Tasmanian was fresh out of the AFL system and played a key role in Maribyrnong Park’s two premierships in 2009 and 2010 as a playing coach.
After another four years at the Lions, Holland decided to take a break from football at the end of 2014 before being sounded out by the EDFL three years later to coach the senior interleague team for the 2017 season.
Following a successful stint with Caroline Springs, when Ben Hart moved to an assistant coaching role at GWS at the end of the 2022 season, Holland was at the top of President Whitlam Malkoun’s list to lead the Northern Bullants in 2023.
Soon enough, Holland wanted to get back to suburban level and Marby has always felt like home.
It seemed like the obvious choice to move back to a club that he’d had a great deal of success with and fortunately, they were looking for a coach after they’d just been relegated.
“I always had Marby in mind to come back to,” Holland remarked.
“I just had such great memories and a great experience at the football club.
“I had a really challenging year at the Bullants last year, finishing second bottom winning only two games.
“I was pretty keen to do something a little bit more relaxed in the footy industry from a coaching point of view.
“Marby’s job was coming up, so I just thought it was a no brainer, I live three minutes around the corner, the kids play juniors there."
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At the end of 2023 when Holland walked through the doors at Marby for the first time since 2014 as coach, there was an overwhelming sense of optimism.
Despite a difficult year that saw them finish on the bottom of the ladder and their stint in Premier Division come to an end, Holland knew the club was still in a really good position.
“I was really surprised that they got relegated based on the games that I watched because I thought that they were really competitive for three quarters against really good teams.
“They were a really young group that probably just needed to be tweaked a little bit defensively from a playing point of view and some experience needed to be added in just to help those kids.
“I was really excited that we would be more competitive in Division One and the team I came and watched was unlucky with injury and the younger players just didn’t know how to win.
“I thought even with the current group, without even recruiting we were potentially going to be in the top couple of teams in Division One.
When Holland took over, exposing youth to senior footy was something the club was always going to do.
While some might have found it a challenge to sacrifice winning games in the short term over giving opportunity to youngsters, the veteran coach has been able to play the kids without the fear of costing them valuable premiership points.
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“There were a lot of good quality kids that had already had experience at Premier, so coming back and playing a role in Division One is something that they’ve stepped back in and done fairly well.
“It’s given me flexibility and freedom to go and play those kids knowing that I can win games of footy with youth in the team and give them three or four games and see if they are up to it.
“There’s a couple of guys that have come in late in the year like (Sam) Calleri and Jai Brinkkotter that spent most of the year in the twos and still qualified for the twos (finals) this weekend, but they’ve been an integral part of the team in the seniors and kicked seven goals between them last week against Hillside.
“Max Griffin has had a great season to date, he’s done incredibly well, Zach Coughlan has come in as an Under 18 player and is improving every week in the back line as a rebounding intercept marking player that’s got good height on him and can play on smalls, mediums, and talls.
"Will Ryan and Ned Ryan have been rock solid and Will especially seems to be getting better every week.
“That’s what a lot of people don’t realise, I think I had a couple of the West Coburg boys come up to me after the game and say I didn’t realise how young you guys were – I think we’ve got six or seven players every week that have an average age of 20.”
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Even though 2024 has seen Marby’s resurgence to the top of the Division One ladder, the year certainly hasn’t been without its challenges.
The side lost two of its first four to formidable opponents with questions being asked if the side would be able to challenge for the premiership in its first season in the second tier competition.
Luckily these thoughts were put to bed with Holland being able to galvanise the group and rise up the ladder on the back of 12 successive wins.
“I thought we were just really off against West Coburg early and we didn’t adjust to the size of the ground well.
“The St Albans one was a funny one because we’d had the bye leading into that. It was something that I’d never done before, I gave the players two sessions off leading into that game as a bit of a trial just to see if the players can go away and have responsibilities of doing their own training.
“I just like felt we didn’t train well coming back the next week after the bye and then we had a couple of players that played really poorly and haven’t played since.
“We only lost by two points and we were in front with three minutes to go and played really poorly.
“I think that game there was a bit of a turning point for us. We said, 'We’re not training well enough, we’re not committing to certain aspects of our preparation' and we tweaked a few things and the leadership group had a strong chat to the playing group and our training standards went through the roof.
“I reckon it was the best thing that happened to us this year losing that game. If we had've won it, maybe we would’ve kept sailing and doing things the same way.
With a month of footy left to play, the signs look good at Marby Park and Holland certainly has to take a lot of credit for their resurgence.
A pair of victories will be the ultimate reward for a proud club looking to return to the top flight.
