Ploenges to coach Henwood Park in hopeful return to Pascoe Cup

An ex-junior of the club, Ploenges will retire from Wagga City at the end of the 2023 season and return to club soccer with the Hawks.

President Tony Dobbin and senior vice president Chris Hart reached out to Ploenges earlier this year to discuss his 2024 season plans.

"I received a phone call a few months ago, asking me about my intentions for next year and asking me to come on board, so I went and had a think about it," Ploenges said.

"I was always going to come back to local league next year, the commitment of Wanderers was becoming a bit too much, so it was fairly easy to say yes to come back to my old club."

With no experience coaching at a senior level, Ploenges said he's excited to be taking on a new challenge though he'll remain entirely focused on Wanderers until the completion on the 2023 season.

While the club takes a chance on him, he's as much taking a chance on them, hoping there will in fact be a team for him to coach.

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Dobbin said appointing a coach was the first major milestone in the play to return to the first grade competition next year.

Hart said it was important to the club to bring in a familiar face to help bring confidence to returning and prospective players.

"Getting some former players back is something we're going to be big on after the struggles of this year, recent players, players who are young, players who are still playing, like Jake, to bring some normality back to the club, rather than just all new faces," Hart said.

"Getting some familiar faces around, we're trying to build off people who have a history here.

"We're always happy to bring in new people but with the struggles this year, bringing some familiar faces, some normality back was going to give us a kick up."

Ploenges said it was disappointing to see the club wouldn't field a first grade side in 2023 and he's ready for the challenge of getting them back on their feet next year.

"It was actually relatively upsetting to see, it's going to be a big challenge, the only coaching experience I have is with juniors so it'll be interesting to see how I go but I've got Chris and Tony, and a lot of people who will back me up," he said.

"We're going in as a team effort, we're all going to bring what we can to the table and build off each other and not put too much pressure on one person," Hart said.

Adamant when they were unable to field the team this season that it would be just a once off error, Dobbin said announcing a coach shows they're serious about returning to the competition at full strength.

"It was important for us to get that under out belt, that was our focus, get a coach, look around, see who was available, get the word out there, and it's worked out," he said.

"By doing that it's put a major issue behind us and now we can focus on the next issue for the next six months."

Both Dobbin and Hart expressed gratitude to players who remained at the club to play in the second and fourth grade competition this season.

Hart said there are no hard feelings towards those players who sought first grade opportunities elsewhere and he hopes to see their homecoming for 2024.

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