Former Wagga City Wanderers goalkeeper Liam Dedini has inherited one of his club’s most important coaching positions after being named to steer the under 20s side next season.
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A 100-game veteran and foundation player at Gissing Oval, Dedini was plucked from a list of candidates to fill the void left by predecessor Mick Godbier, who recently accepted the head position with the women’s Wanderers program.
It’s been a whirlwind journey for Dedini from shot stopper to development officer after having his playing career cut short by a string of injuries, but there’s little doubt he’s capable of taking on a new footballing challenge.
“I only found at last Friday after my interview, so obviously I’m still a bit in the moment, but it’s really exciting,” Dedini said.
“I’m looking forwards to getting into it.”
Having filled the development role with Football Wagga, Dedini is familiar with the city’s rising talent and is hoping to channel his knowledge into the new role of head coach – with a few helpers on the side.
“I’ve already spoken with a few of the boys from last year and we’ve got a pretty young team here, so we’ll look to keep developing the players we’ve got here,” Dedini said.
“We’ll have a few senior players involved with the side as well to give a bit of direction and experience and we’ll also look at seeing who we can bring into the club.
“We’ve got some good young players within Wagga that we’ll look at but we’ll also be looking outside town for guys we can potentially get involved with the Wanderers.”.
It’s early days with trials still two weeks away but Dedini has already set a high bar for his side and won’t be satisfied with another finish near the bottom of the competition table.
“Obviously our goal is to grow these players but we’d love to climb the ladder a bit more next season. I’m pretty optimistic about these things and I think it would be amazing if we could get one of our three men’s teams into finals.”
We’ve been around since 2014 now and it would good to climb up and see what we can do in finals.”
Dedini’s appointment has already been met with an outpouring of support from the Wanderers community and the new under 20s coach is eager to funnel that enthusiasm into pre-season preparations.
“We really just want to build that good club culture and get stuck into pre-season training with the other boys,” Dedini said.
“We just need the numbers down and then we’ll go from there.”
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