REDAN has moved quickly to appoint its new coach with former Darley and Gordon mentor Gary Learmonth signing on with the Lions for the next two seasons.
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Learmonth, who has spent the past year coaching Darley's under 15s, said the timing was right for him to step back into senior coaching.
He has previously spent five years as senior coach at Darley and two years at Gordon. As well as his former senior coaching experience, Learmonth has also run the AFL Goldfields junior academy.
"Both Gordon and Darley have been quite successful clubs, so I'd like to think I might have had a little bit to do with some of the success they've seen," he said.
"I was thinking about coming back to coach and, to be honest the call came a bit out of the blue and I was a bit taken a-back initially.
"I had a look at Redan's list, their results and I went and watched a number of their games.
"They have a terrific list to build and work with. While they've got a number of very good senior players, they've also got a core of great kids coming through which I knew from a lot fot he development work I'd been doing.
"Coaching against them at Darley, it was a club I really respected as well."
Learmonth said he was excited about the natural improvement that would come over the next few years.
"It'll be the young players coming in that will have the biggest amount of improvement and my role will be to work with the senior players and get them to work with developing those young players to become great Ballarat Football Netball League players, that's where the improvement will come from," he said.
He revealed that the coaching fire had been reignited by his time at Darley.
"I coached the under 15s with my son at Darley and just seeing the kids improve was what it's about," he said.
"We sat down as a family and discussed whether it was the right time to get back into senior coaching and this role came up, it really was case of 'now or never'.
"It's a great opportunity and I'm really excited about what will come from here. The opportunities are there for the club and we have to make finals our aim."
Redan club president Garry Goyne said the club was thrilled to be able to secure such a well known and respected mentor to lead the young side at least the next two seasons.
"We announced it to everyone at the club on Sunday," Goyne said.
"Gary has been doing a lot of developmental stuff across the league and the AFL Goldfields as well and it suits our player profile.
"We're ecstatic about the appointment and we're obviously looking forward to what we hope will be a very successful couple of years ahead."
Goyne said the club had been active in the past few weeks once it was announced that Jarrett Giampaolo would be stepping down from his role.
"We spoke to a few people we were interested in and the cards have fallen with Gary and we're chuffed about that," he said. "He's well rounded as coach, obviously coaching Darley into a grand final.
"Jarrett will still be with us, so no doubt the pair will work over the list and talk about what we need. There's a lot of talent coming through, we had five under 17s play senior footy, four under 19s played seniors, we're looking good, just need to keep those kids going forward."
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