Looby described the Alpine Saints’ 8-10 win-loss ratio as disappointing after the club broke their finals drought the previous season.

“I’ve always had a passion for coaching,” Looby said.

“I reckon I see the game as a coach.

“It’s an exciting list we have at the moment and, we will be the first to admit, we under-achieved with our talent last year.

“Whether the weight of expectation and other clubs being hot on us was a factor I’m not sure.

“I just think we are in a good position to go up the ladder and the coaching structure the club has put in place has all bases covered.

“We have four to five guys who come from different walks of life and I really think we can go somewhere.”

It will be the Victoria Country representative’s second crack at coaching after he led home club Shepparton United for two seasons.

Myrtleford has confirmed Brad Murray, Fraser Lucas and Josh Chapman as departures and is presently working on player retention.

Chapman has signed as assistant-coach of Murray league club Congupna.

Looby said a key forward was a recruiting priority.

“We’re just trying to establish our list at the moment and it looks really positive,” he said.

“Obviously key forwards don’t grow on trees and they are hard to find.

“You can see what Michael Newton did for Wang Magpies this year.

“You would love someone like him but it’s never easy.

“Saying that we aren’t too far away with our attack after averaging 85 points a match.

“If we can’t get a key forward, we want to add to our midfield depth.

“We also have players we need to expose in the midfield

“We need Elijah Wales, Lachie Dale and Mitch Dalbosco to have a lot more time in the middle without a Brad Murray and what not.”

Burgess is one of the most experienced coaches in the region after spending time at Corowa-Rutherglen, Barnawartha, Wodonga, Wodonga Raiders and Myrtleford.

He also worked under Jeff Gieschen at Richmond.

The Morris Medallist said he had no firm plans to coach again after parting company with Corowa-Rutherglen this year.

“I hadn’t really thought about it too much,” Burgess said.

“It happened reasonably quickly with the season nearly over and we just wanted to make it a smooth transition with the new coach (Marc Almond) coming in.

“I’ve seen a lot of these kids come through the juniors and under-18s at Myrtleford and coached against them as well.

“There are a lot of young talls and I think there is plenty of upside in their game.”