The Tigers’ road to Hockey One success in 2023 has begun with the appointment of the Tassie Tigers Women’s and Men’s coaches.
Stephen McMullen has returned to continue his campaign as the head coach of the Men’s team, with Tim Strapp named to lead
the Women’s team for the first time after being assistant coach last year.
McMullen had a successful year of coaching during last year’s season with the Men’s team narrowly missing out on top 4 of the ladder.
McMullen is “excited to be back with the group, we were disappointed with our finish last year and want the chance to finish where we should.”
“Achievement wise, anything other than playing in finals is a failure for us – it’s that simple.”
“There are also some great young players that we want to transition into the group, I am very excited to see further development of players such as Max Larkin, Ollie Pritchard, Tyler McDonald and Rueben Hoey.”
“We need to develop our forwards and potentially find some help from overseas in this area.”
“Overall, we have a number of players who were in the squad of 30 last year who will press for selection, add this to our Kookaburra players and we have a great mix of excitement.”
Strapp is highly qualified for the role of head coach. As the head hockey coach at the Tasmanian Institute of Sport (TIS) and having been assistant coach last year, he has an immense knowledge of the Tasmanian talent pool. He also has many years of experience having been head coach of the Victorian Vipers from 2015-2018, in a period which saw a lot of success for the team including a league title in 2017. To top off his lengthy resume of experience, he also lead Hockey Club Melbourne to a second place finish in the 2019 Hockey One Season, so he knows exactly what it takes to achieve success in the league.
“I’m looking forward to leading the program this year. There has been great work done over the last few years, especially in the culture space.” (Tim Strapp).
In terms of what Strapp is looking to achieve with the team, he is looking to “keep improving our ability to compete in every game consistently. We showed in 2022 that we can compete with the best team in the competition.” He wants to give the girls the “tools to be able to adapt our way of play throughout the competition where required too.”
“We have a solid depth of talent coming through which I am looking forward to seeing improve again this year. There is also a group of more experienced athletes who could and should contribute to the group. I don’t think the answer to is too always looking younger. Finding the balance in our squad is important.”
The duo’s appointment comes as player nominations open for both the Men’s and Women’s teams this week, with squad selection trainings beginning in June.