Camperdown re-signs Neville Swayn as senior football coach for 2023 Hampden league season

The Magpies have re-jigged their coaching structure with Troy Stephens committing as senior assistant.

They are also in the process of adding line coaches to help cover all bases as they plot a move up the Hampden league ladder in 2023.

Swayn, 49, said it was a positive move.

"Feedback I gave the club is we're so time-poor and I can't do everything that I wanted to do," he told The Standard.

"I need more help and they've taken that onboard.

"It will allow me to coach a lot more how I want to, in terms of one-on-ones and with the reviews we can go to the next step.

"It's going to completely change the landscape of our coaching. There's some really good changes going forward."

Camperdown opened coaching expressions of interest in July with Swayn, who was uncontracted for next year, given a chance to re-apply.

"It was a little bit different to normal," Swayn said.

"In the end we probably got the result we wanted. The backing of the players was really important which made the decision to go again a lot easier.

"The process, it is what it is, the club has worked through that. We had really open conversations over the last couple of weeks.

"We said what we had to say, everyone learns from experience."

Camperdown president Aaron Sinnott said the club was confident the changes would help the Magpies' competitiveness.

"Part of the process over the past eight to 10 weeks has given us a chance to do a review on our footy department and structure," he told The Standard.

"The feedback from Neville was he needed some more support around him, just some new fresh sets of eyes to help him out a little bit."

Swayn, a father-of-three, has strong ties to the club.

Wife Tash is secretary and a trainer and children - Sophie, 20, Holly, 18, and Rory, 15 - are heavily involved.

Sophie is a trainer, Holly plays netball and did personal training work with the footballers during pre-season and Rory helped with statistics.

Camperdown has most of its list onboard for next year - bar Luke Molan (retired) and Ash Royal (overseas) - with former players a chance to return to Leura Oval too.

Full-back Brendan Richardson - one of the competition's premier defenders - will return after missing the entire 2022 campaign with a health problem.

"Retention was huge because we've got 12 months' (development) into our kids, so there's growth already," Swayn said.

"It's exciting but we know we have a lot of work to do."

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