Ben Harding unveiled as Allansford senior coach for 2022

Harding, 24, will coach the Cats next season with returning under 18 coach Tim Nowell as his assistant.

This is the agricultural contractor's first gig as a senior coach while Nowell is entering his third season as the Cats' under 18s mentor and has put his hand up to help Harding with the club's top side.

Harding, who steps into the role after former coach Ben Price stood down at the end of the 2021 Warrnambool and District league season, said he was excited about the opportunity.

"It's a very exciting time for the club and being senior coach next year I've got a great assistant coach beside me in Tim Nowell," he said.

"It's an exciting time, I'm sure of that. We've got a few recruits that we're in the process of signing up. It's going to be a bright time for the club.

"I've never been a senior coach before so it's a new environment to me.

"I came to Allansford this year to play and it's a great club and great organisation. An opportunity came up so I put my hand up and Tim backed me in as a young coach.

"I know there'll be a lot of criticism about that sort of thing but I love added pressure and it'll drive me to perform and get the club going again."

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The former Simpson player, who now lives in Warrnambool, said a number of the Cats' under 18s side would step up in 2022.

"It was a bit of a bummer for the under 18s because they didn't get to play finals after they went through undefeated but we've got 10 of them coming up next year and they're all good kids," he said.

"It's going to be unreal and they'll be a good bunch of kids to coach and are building into good players, they're willing to listen and they're great assets for the club."

Harding said he was starting from scratch with his side next season.

"Coming up against the top sides like Nirranda, and the way they move the footy, we'll have to change our gamestyle to bridge the gap and Tim and I are aware of that," he said.

"We'll bring a few people in and it'll be a new side to what people have seen. We're well on track and have a great bunch of blokes who are willing to put their heads down and bums up and get stuck into it."

Nowell said Harding was a good emerging coach. He said his job was to assist him and help nurture the club's next crop of senior footballers.

"We have a good crop of young players working hard on coming into the seniors and they've all committed to playing next year under Ben, which is a great result for the club," he said.

"That hasn't happened for a number of years and then we have 15 staying in the under 18s and there is still five or six of them who'll be pushing for seniors right from the word go.

"The depth in the under 18s is great. I'm staying on as coach as it's a time of building stability, focusing on moving forward and building success."

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