THURGOONA star Kade Brown and Dan Cleary have been appointed co-coaches of Thurgoona.
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The pair replace premiership coach Brett Doswell who recently stepped down citing increased work commitments.
Brown, 32, said he had always harboured coaching ambitions and jumped at the opportunity to co-coach the league powerhouse.
"It's all happened fairly quickly," Brown said.
"Coaching has always interested me so when the club approached me I thought to myself it's probably now or never.
"It's going to be a strange time to coach in regards to the COVID-19 restrictions and salary caps set to be reduced.
"So it's going to be tough with recruiting and so forth.
"But it wouldn't be a coaching gig without a challenge would it?"
Brown crossed to Thurgoona from North Albury in 2014 after more than 100 matches at Bunton Park.
This might seem strange but I feel the club has been a victim of its own success in a lot of ways.
- Kade Brown
The highly skilled utility has played in all three flags at the kennel in 2016-17 and last season.
He has been a vital cog in the Bulldogs' dominant era and is set to play his 100th match at the kennel next season.
Cleary returns to his former club after a two-year coaching stint with Brock-Burrum reserves.
He led the Saints reserves to the flag last year.
Brown said Cleary was his first choice as a co-coach and was highly regarded for his smart football brain.
"Dan has coached the reserves and thirds at Thurgoona previously and knows the club well," he said.
"He was the first guy I thought of when I was first approached about the coaching job.
"I'm the first to admit I probably couldn't do the job by myself and knew he was super keen to coach senior footy.
"By all reports I think he was in the mix to be an assistant coach at Brock-Burrum next year before we swooped.
"Having coached our thirds previously is also beneficial because he has a good connection with the kids who hopefully want to play under him."
IN OTHER NEWS
Brown said it was an exciting time to being taking over as coach and said one of his first priorities was to reinvigorate the Bulldogs' ageing list.
"I know Thurgoona gets widely criticised for its ageing list," he said.
"This might seem strange but I feel the club has been a victim of its own success in a lot of ways.
"Next season will be the first opportunity in a long time that we have had the opportunity to expose kids to senior football.
"For the past four to five seasons we have had a core senior group that has had a lot of success and it has been hard to find room in the side for the kids.
"But with a lot of the older blokes retiring it presents opportunities for the kids.
"As much as you want to keep the guys that are 35 plus, now is the time to build the future success of the club around the younger blokes."