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NORTH Ballarat Roosters’ coaching crisis is reaching boiling point.
The Courier understands key player representatives are trying to meet with the football club’s board, possibly as soon as this weekend, with their concerns. This includes issues with player retention and recruitment, which has seriously stalled, and club stability in the Victorian Football League.
The Roosters need to build a standalone list of more than 40 players this summer after ending a partial-alignment with AFL club North Melbourne.
But the Roosters are still without a coach in prime recruiting time – this includes potential player lures from rival VFL and grassroots clubs.
This comes after the Roosters announced Thursday morning they were still in the hunt when two final candidates fell through. One was North Ballarat Rebels under-18 head coach David Loader, who this week accepted a development role with AFL club North Melbourne.
The other candidate, not confirmed by the board, was Roosters head coach Gerard FitzGerald who had reapplied after the board announced in June it would not extend his contract beyond 2015. The Courier understands contract negotiations had deteriorated before a final board ruling on Wednesday night.
The Roosters are the only regional team in the VFL and have attracted players from across western Victoria, into the now-defunct Bendigo Gold region and as far as country Victoria in the state’s east for a chance to play state league and live and work outside Melbourne.