It’s not only players who can reach milestones, coaches also do it too. This weekend during Round 10 of the Mortgage Choice Hills Football League, A Grade coach Damien Salievic coaches his 150th game for the Blackwood Football Club.
In his eighth season as coach, Salievic takes over the title from J.R Hunter as the longest serving A Grade coach (since 1945) at the Blackwood Football Club. He is also currently the longest serving coach in Division 1 and the second longest serving coach in the Hills Football League behind Brett James from Kersbrook (who started in 2008).
Coaching the Blackwood Football Club all began in 2009 after two seasons as a playing assistant under then coach Paul Page. In the first season, Salievic took the side to the Grand Final. “It was an amazing achievement to get to the grand final in my first season as coach. Unfortunately we just couldn’t get the job done on the day beaten by a very strong Uraidla side.”
In 2010, Salievic once again made the finals but was knocked out by Hahndorf in the semi-final. It was a trying season with injuries having an impact on the structure of the side. Then in 2011 came the game that anyone associated with the Blackwood Football Club at the time can remember, the 1 point loss to Uraidla Districts in the Grand Final. “I still think about that game today. I still go over all the things I could’ve have done differently. I was very stubborn on the day. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.” said Salievic when asked about the day.
Salievic in his early days of coaching
Photo courtesy of: The Courier – Mt Barker
Salievic delivering a message during a break in play
Photo courtesy of: The Courier – Mt Barker
Moving down to West Adelaide for two seasons, Salievic headed up the Under 16s team. Reflecting on his two seasons at West Adelaide, Salievic said it was a great experience to have. “West Adelaide taught me so many things. It taught me that being a football coach is just not about winning in the present, it is also about winning in the future. Being at the Bloods taught me about how develop a side so you can keep winning into the future years.”
Coming back to the club in 2014, Salievic returned the club to the top 5 after two successive seasons of missing the finals. “I brought back a few things I learnt from West Adelaide. I brought back some different philosophies which could help the team but as a coach I learnt that it is also about communication. I tried to bring that back with me to the Woods.”
After hitting a stumbling block in 2015, Salievic went about changing things in 2016 in search for that elusive A Grade Premiership. With the help of the club committee, a fitness coach was employed to take fitness to a new level, along with extra assistants brought into the coaching group. “After missing the finals for the first time as a coach I did a solid evaluation in the off-season. We needed to get better as a football club, we needed to be more professional.”
The off field changes in the pre-season paid off immediately with the side recording 12 wins and 6 loses to finish 3rd on the ladder. Winning the qualifying final, the side came up against Hahndorf at Echunga in the Semi Final. Leading at half time, a burst of rain came during the break which completely changed the momentum of the game. With a loss, the side faced Torrens Valley in the Preliminary Final. It was pure devastation in the rooms after that game. “The mood in the rooms after the game was like we’d let ourselves and the club down. We knew we still had more to give. I think it galvanized the group.” said Salievic.
Using what happened at the end of 2016 as a driver, pre-season saw some sole searching and then strengthening up of areas which let the side down during 2016. Matt Golding was brought in as an Assistant Coach whilst Nick Homburg was recruited to bolster the midfielder. Brendan Bishop also took over the strength and conditioning department. Off-field changes seemed to work with the side not losing a game till Round 16 against Uraidla. “We put in a great effort to get to Round 16 before recording our first loss of the season. Some of the efforts during the Round 16 and 17s loses set us up for the upcoming finals matches.”
Hitting the finals, the side played an outstanding qualifying final against Uraidla. Coming into the semi final against Hahndorf the coaching panel did a mountain off work behind the scenes studying the tape of previous matches and looking over notes from the opposition analysis. Despite going down in the match the side still had the confidence to beat Hahndorf if they came up against them. As stated by Salievic, “I knew if we got to play them again we could get the job done.”
Not getting to far ahead, the team focused on Uraidla Districts on the preliminary final and got the win. With the stars aligning for a premiership drought to be broken with Blackwood playing Hahndorf at Lobethal just as happened 26 years ago, all supporters were hopeful of snatching a historic victory. As the game played out Blackwood were matching it with Hahndorf and lead by 8 points at the final break.
Salievic recalls the last quarter with fond memories. “We had little bench in the last quarter with injuries having an impact on us. As the quarter panned out I began to get a feeling like 2011 was repeating itself all over again. When it came down to that last kick, I could barely watch. The rest is history now.”
Reflecting on how coaching has changed in the eight seasons he has coached Blackwood, Salievic said local football is so much different to when he first started coaching. “It’s a more complicated game now. Gone are the days of just bombing it long into the full forward. Everyone watches the AFL and tries to replicate what they do. It’s also much different in the way you have to get your message across. You can’t just huff and puff anymore, you have to articulate and communicate your message in the right way.”
Looking into the future Salievic hasn’t set a date on when he intends to finish up coaching. “I don’t like to set a date on it. I’ll continue to coach until the time feel like to hand over the reigns.”
Some current statistics from the 149 games which Salievic has coached include:
- 63.76% winning ratio (95 wins, 51 losses, 3 draws)
- 12,716 total points scored by Blackwood
- 10,156 total points scored by Opposition
- Biggest win – Round 17 2009 – 240 point win over Bridgewater
- Highest team score – Round 17 2009 vs Bridgewater – 277 points
- Biggest loss – Round 14 2016 – 92 point loss to Torrens Valley
- Lowest team score – Qualifying Final 2010 and Round 2 2015 – 16 points (Both against Uraidla Districts)
- Average winning margin – 42.9 points
- Average losing margin – 29.8 points
- Most successful team winning against – Bridgewater (100%) (8 from 8 matches)
- Least successful team winning against – Echunga (36.36%) (4 of 11 matches)
- 45 matches the team has scored over 100 points (30.4%)
- 19 matches conceded over 100 points (13.1%)
- 70.15% of matches won at home (Averaging 108.9 points across those wins)
- Highest score against – 128 points (Round 2 2014 v Hahndorf)
- Most successful minor round – Round 12 (100% winning record)
- Least successful minor round – Round 4 (37.5% winning record)
- Premierships – 1 (2017)
- HFL Inter-league Coach – 2018
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