Matt Boland heads New Look Two Blues Coaching Panel for 2020
Prahran Assumption will head into season 2020 with an all-new coaching panel.
It is with great excitement that we welcome Matt Boland as the new senior men's coach of Prahran Assumption Football Club for season 2020. And James Grierson will take the reins as senior women's coach succeeding Harry Stepehens.
James is partner of team manager Sophie Pennington and worked as an assistant this season quickly building a great rapport with the playing group.
Also joining the Two Blues senior men's coaching panel to work alongside Bolo will be his great friend Matt Clifford who has accepted the role of senior assistant coach for the year ahead.
Both Boland and Clifford come to Toorak Park with enviable football resumes and, having trained with our club intermittently throughout the year whilst playing country footy, have a strong belief that they can help to drive our club forward both on and off the field.
Ashley Mills, who has coached the club for seven of the past eight years, has stepped away from the head coach role and supported the change of the guard. He has indicated he will maintain a presence at the club.
Bolo’s footy journey is a distinguished one – he began his senior footy at Parkdale in the VAFA where he won a senior best and fairest and was a premiership player, followed by two years at Sandringham and then two years at Collingwood in the VFL. He then made the decision to head west where he had a successful stint with Subiaco in the WAFL, netting two premierships including a seven goal haul in their 2015 flag which saw him awarded the prestigious Simpson Medal for best player on the ground. Upon returning home to Victoria, Bolo played at Parkdale for another two seasons followed by an injury interrupted year at Kangaroo Flat in the Bendigo Football League in 2019.
Clifford also has an impressive catalogue of footy experience – he represented the Dandenong Stingrays in the TAC Cup Under 18 competition and was later named in the Peninsula Football League Team of Year whilst playing at Bonbeach in 2014.
He then went on to spend four successful years at Hastings FC where he was senior vice captain and a key member in their 2016 premiership side. In 2019 Clifford was playing assistant coach alongside Bolo at Kangaroo Flat and won their senior best and fairest playing predominantly as a big bodied midfielder who can work hard both ways.
President Fabio Maya welcomed the boys to the Two Blues family – “We are just thrilled to get two quality football people like the two Matts to lead our footy club and to build on the great culture on and off field established by Millsy and the playing group over a long period of time,” Maya said.
“We are also looking forward to welcoming their family and friends to the club and making this their footballing home for a long time to come.”
Welcome onboard Bolo and Cliffy!
Please note the Club will be holding a meet the new coach’s day at the College Lawn on Sunday 20th October 2019 at 1pm onwards, all players, supporters and family members welcome.
(The club hopes to announce our new women’s coach by October 20 if not then by the end of this month. We thank Harry Stephens who stepped into the role on short notice, literally one week before the start of the season).
PAFC Presentation Night
Ruckman and assistant coach Brett Dickinson won a thrilling Best & Fairest vote on September 26 at the Local, Port Melbourne, to count to pip club captain James Musster by one vote.
Dicko wins the Basil Cleary Medal and Sir Rupert Steele perpetual trophy.
The great news for Two Blues fans is that Dickinson, the premier ruckman in Division 1, will play on next season.
Senior Men’s Awards:
Best & Fairest (Basil Cleary Medal and Rupert Steele Perpetual Trophy): Brett Dickinson (106 votes)
Runner-up: James Musster (105 votes)
George Hawkins/Kim Smith Leading Goal Kicker: Callum Wilson (45 Goals)
Steve Powell Players player: Brett Dickinson
Coach’s award: Beau Adams
Reserves:
Best & Fairest: Tom Luff (94 votes)
Runner-up: Brody Quinn (69 votes)
Leading Goal Kicker: Hayden Taylor (17 Goals)
Alf Blamey Player’s player: Tom Luff
Coach’s award: Blake Graham
Neale Daniher Most Courageous Club Person Medal:
Freba Mohammad Zayee
Senior Women’s:
Best & Fairest: AJ (Ashleigh) Bransden
Runner-up: Gabriella Suriano
Player’s player: Freba Mohammad Zayee
Best first year player: Mel Theobald
Coaches Award: Jess Dimattina
Milestones:
200 Senior games Jack Matherson
150 Senior games Tim Maya
150 Senior games Michael Bremner
150 Club games Adam Hall
The Len Reed Memorial Best Club Person
Best Club Person: Neil Roberts
Neale Daniher Medal Winner (Most Courageous)
This is a snapshot of the moving story of how Freba Mohammad Zayee’s journey to Prahran as told by teammate Gab Suriano.
“Freba Mohammed Zayee’s family migrated to Australia from Afghanistan when freba was just two months old.
They left to escape the civil war and government changes that left them at risk. As one of ten children. Frebas’ family didn’t realise that Freba was deaf until she was two years old. From that time, she has navigated learning to live with severe hearing loss in a community addicted to sound and growing up in a modern world within a traditional Muslim family.
A lover of team sports, especially AFL, Freba and her peers found it hard to gain acceptance at sporting clubs where deafness and sign language weren’t common place.
In 2018, Freba joined PAFCs inaugural all-inclusive women’s team, making an immediate impact by winning the captains award for best team player.
In 2019 Freba’s commitment to the team has been strong; travelling from endeavour hills for each training session. She has especially embodied the Daniher spirit of courage on field. Freba is always leading by example by consistently putting her head over the ball despite being the smallest player on the field. She’s had the most black eyes of any player (three in 13 games) and played with broken fingers for ten games in order to ensure that our women’s side could field a team when numbers were low.
Freba embodies the spirit of the Daniher award of courage in football and in life.”
Life Membership
Retiring coach Ash Mills and 150 senior game players James Musster and Tim Maya will be proposed for life membership at November’s Annual General Meeting.
Mills bows out after coaching the club for seven seasons, highlighted by the Division 2 2107 premiership. Equally as significantly he has been a major catalyst in an improved culture at our football club and has formed a close bond with his players and supporters alike. Millsy is likely to stay on in a reduced capacity with a game day role.
Musster, a dual best and fairest, and Maya are both dual premiership players and began their careers with the Prahran-Caulfield Under 19s.