Special Feature: Morgan getting things right at Wollongong

It?s funny as they?ll readily admit in the media, for one of the less fancied sides in South Coast Wolves and their young ?up and coming? coach Trevor Morgan who is receiving plenty of plaudits for his efforts, says: ?It?s nice to be called young (he laughs) especially as you get older!
?But on a serious note it is humbling if my peers say good things about me.
?It is a tremendous compliment for what we are trying to achieve here but coaching is, after all, practice and not perfection and you learn from your mistakes.
 ?Like most people I?ve made plenty of them and hopefully when I?m an older coach (he laughs again) I can look back on a happy and prosperous career.
?That?s the plan anyway.?
Against the backdrop of financial problems and location Morgan has set about building his team to certain disciplines as he continues
?I feel we are heading in the right direction with the side.
?We are trying to do two things, play a certain style of football regardless of the formation and trying to develop some of our younger talents so from last year we?ve been able to bring back some of our experienced players like Sasho Petrovski and Jacob Timpano who we believe can obviously help us win games but also help to bring those younger talents on.?
It?s no secret that last season the Wolves at times found it a struggle so although early in the 2011 NSW Premier League season there are signs the style of play Morgan is trying to adopt and promote is beginning to pay dividends. Obviously there are a few hiccups along the way but that isn?t down to a drop in standards of other teams as Morgan quickly points out.
?This competition will always be a tough one to win as the coaches are very astute and have been around  the game long enough to focus on their results and their organisation.
?There isn?t a game you can go into where you would feel the opposition is going to be disorganised or easy to beat but from our point of view we have made a great deal of progress.?
One example of that is losing midfielder Jason Trifiro to Northcote City at the Victorian Premier League when the Wolves coach would have loved to have seen him linking up with Lawrence Drake in the midfield.
?Jason got our Player of the Year last season but he wanted to try something different and is playing in Melbourne at the moment.
?I did have to let some players go but the squad is starting to gel even though we haven?t played as many games together as you would think in our second year but also the quality of some of the players who have come in has helped to fill some of the holes we didn?t have covered last year.
?We are certainly more likely to score goals during this campaign than we did last year, there?s no question about that, so sometimes the work you do does come to a better result.?
Lawrence Drake, not intentionally singling any particular player out, has been industrious in the midfield making the side tick in the centre of the pitch and setting up many a chance so far this campaign and had he been linking with Trifiro, it would have been a sight to behold.
?I thought we were very creative in the centre last year and you?re right in saying that Lawrence is a very capable player at this level having played in the National League previously and on his day you can see what he brings to this team.
?He has a good knowledge of the game and brings good techniques with him and he obviously plays in the middle of the park for a reason because he is helping the team to function as I want them to.?
Unable to draw Morgan on the supposed financial problems of the club last term and the affect it may have had on the team he is forthright in saying.
?We concentrate on what happens on the pitch but you need to work to a realistic budget when the prize money is what it is so you cannot be giving away silly money to people.
?Our club philosophy is firmly fixed that we would love to see long term the entire squad, either guys who have moved to Wollongong or blokes who have been produced there, particularly produced there as it?s a compliment to our Academy living in the area so it cuts their travel time and the expenses incurred therein and that way you can give the young guy a start and by the time they are 22-23-years old they could be playing A-League football.
?That is the way we want to think about things because finances in this league are always tight and we don?t have a ?Licensed club? to support us like many of the others so it?s always going to be a little bit harder for us to generate the funds.?
Morgan states this simply as a matter of fact and in no way attempts to ?cry poor? at the situation with the reality, one suspects, being the opposite and actually helping the squad to band together in the familiar ?us and them? scenario with the added bonus that players coming through the Academy are indeed getting a run out in the first team.
Nick Littler has played a fair bit of first team football who at the start of last season was playing in the Under 20 side, Stejpan Paric was brought in from school and has featured in the senior side with Peter Simonovski, who netted a hat-trick in Wolves? 4-1 Under 20?s win over Sydney United last weekend, knocking on the door.
Those mentioned, among a host of others, have mainly come from the Wollongong Juniors and when called upon for first team duty have not been found wanting, plus there are many lads in the first team squad that have been playing for Wollongong all their lives.  
Many would realistically have South Coast Wolves merely consolidating their position in the league for 2011 but as the ?young apprentice? points out.
?Obviously we will look to consolidate this year but also push for a Top Five spot because if you set the bar too low and fall short of it you will too often be ready to accept mediocre.
?Definitely we want to maintain the progress of our style of play and push on so that people out there will think that Wollongong are a good football team and that is something that we want people to associate with us and not anything different.
?I think it has gone through stages but this club has always been known as a good footballing club, we?re not hackers, lump it long type of players, but try to be stylish footballers and both they and we want that and to have that opinion of our football.
?There is no point in choosing simply to make up the numbers and we firmly believe that if we get our own bits and pieces right we can challenge for a Top Five position.?
Traditionally speaking, the Wolves of the old NSL certainly went on to become a force to be reckoned with albeit they had the support of a licensed premises behind them plus other sources of income relating to playing in the top national league of the period via TV rights.
But even they were considered the underdogs of their time yet went on to win Grand Finals both over in Perth and in Parramatta (that should have been played in Wollongong!) against much fancied opposition and it was the togetherness of the squad as a collective that achieved these feats and who is to say that form cannot be repeated?
Speaking before their match at the Sydney United Sports Centre his words could have been taken out of context but even when falling behind in the match and struggling for most of the first period they came out strong for the second and could have salvaged something from the game, that on another day may have happened. The certainty is that South Coast possess a team spirit and philosophy that will not let them just be part of the numbers and any side that plays them will certainly know they have been in a match and it has to be said that it would be good not just for them but the NSW Premier League if they can take out a Top Five position because everyone loves an underdog…just make sure it?s not an underdog with bite?
-By Micky Brock