Tara Murray
Bacchus Marsh will farewell senior football coach Jason Williams after just one season after he received a coaching offer too good to turn down.
The Cobras announced on Friday that Williams had accepted a position with the Port Adelaide Football Club as a development coach for the 2024 season and beyond.
Williams informed the team ahead of its final training session for the season.
“The club has received this news with feelings of sadness at the loss of an exceptional coach, but also with an immense sense of pride that we have been a part of the progression of Jason’s career and pathway to the highest level in the land,” the club said on social media.
“The 2023 season has been one of great challenge and tremendous growth across our whole football program. Jason has reshaped the way our players think about themselves and their club.
“He has empowered players young and old to believe they could achieve beyond their own expectations and time and again, this belief led to success and improvement right across the playing roster. This growth has been born out on the scoreboard in the latter part of the year with three consecutive wins, culminating in last week’s triumph on the road against finals aspirant, Sunbury [Lions]. This was a win that defined Jason’s year with the Cobras.”
Williams said in the club’s announcement that leaving this soon wasn’t what he had envisioned back in November, when he first accepted the role. He said they had been success in laying the foundations that the successes the future will be built on.
“I was confident that I could play a role in turning the club around and create an environment that current, new, and past players would want to be a part of,” he said. “My overall goal was to create an environment that fostered a sense of love and affiliation to the Bacchus Marsh Football Netball Club. I am very pleased to say that with the help of many locals I feel that I can walk away knowing I have done as little as that.
“I have loved every minute spent with the playing group. The demand of high standards and expectations went both ways, I expected and demanded a lot of my guys, they delivered and demanded and expected the same back from me. In reflection, I believe this is what made us good for each other.
“The dynamic of our relationship forced me to be a better coach. It put me in positions where I had to be clearer with my communication, regulate my emotions and lead with empathy and love and for that, I am forever grateful.”
