By Mark Cianfagna
AFL Switzerland Reporter
The grounds are unusually quiet on a warm Sunday afternoon in late winter in southwestern Switzerland. A father and his son practice soccer drills at one end of the field and a few cyclists slowly roll by along the gravel path lining the pitch. There are no portable speakers blaring, no family barbecues. The crowds are still up in the mountains enjoying the last decent weekend of snow. But on the pitch, familiar sounds are heard. The dull thump of a beaten-up cleat on a worn leather ball as teammates and friends exchange pleasantries while passing a pill back and forth.
Three-time premiership coach Tommy Ross is, as usual, among the first at the ground and welcomes his players with a freshly buzzed salad and his iconic laugh. It is hard to believe now that Tommy started in the background in the founding of the club. In the first few training sessions “he sat in the weeds for a while and Benoit [Vittori] took it by the horns before Tommy came out of his shell”, as the founding president and AFL Europe Golden Whistle umpire James Olle puts it. And come out he did! Tommy’s leadership and coaching style has become iconic, not just at the Jets, but league wide.
Yet, as training starts, it is new voices that are commanding the troops, introducing drills, and stressing key points. It is not the excitable, fast-talking, ball-wielding, sometimes-incomprehensible Ross leading the charge, but the imposing yet softer-spoken, bespectacled Brad McConnachy, with his Adelaide lilt, accompanied by an unfamiliar accent in the footy world, the clear, sharp-syllabled Canadian, Mark Cianfagna. Absent due to a work trip back home to Australia is Rhys Allen, the Canberra native, current Geneva Jets Best and Fairest Runner-Up and new co-coach. This season, McConnachy and Allen will be sharing the seniors coaching duties while Cianfagna runs the reserves side.
It is a bit of a shock to the system after three straight seasons of coaching combination Tommy Ross and Benoit Vittori which included a sweep of all AFL Switzerland premierships to date, both in the seniors and reserves. So, after all that success, an upcoming trip to the European Champions League and no reason to think the Jets aren’t the favourites for another run at a premiership in 2022, why the big change?
Ross described his motivation for moving on from the post as “really a number of reasons added up and hard to pinpoint one specific thing”, citing a willingness to “just rock up and play” and the feeling that it was time for someone else to take over. This way he can focus on returning to a more relaxed environment personally and allow him time to concentrate on his role as national team coach, specifically helping to develop young Swiss players individually during training sessions. Despite this, he will have the opportunity to finish what he has started as he continues in the role of Head Coach until after Champions League in April, a moment he has been deprived of due to cancellations the past two seasons due to the pandemic. The Jets will be looking to make an impression in Amsterdam in its first Champions League appearance and Ross is certain that a good showing by a Swiss club will also help to develop the level of footy in the country and produce the space for expansion beyond four teams. There are already rumours of expansion to Lausanne as AFL in Swiss-Romande builds and with the league hosting games in Bern this year, there could be room for further growth in Swiss-Allemande as well.
Vittori reiterates Ross’ comments of wanting to allow himself to just play footy and not have to think about preparation and the ins and outs of running a club. Benoit has also stepped down from his role as a committee member, adding that he needed to focus on finding permanent work, as being coach for an Australian football club in Switzerland just wasn’t going to pay the bills (his request to have his CV added as an annex to this article was refused).
For the new and old regimes, this season’s focus is on developing the young core of Swiss players who have integrated into the club in the past year. With both former coaches having more time during training to aid new players and a new regime with some heavy footy and coaching experience, there is an embarrassment of riches at the club. Allen and McConnachy are excited to see how their collaboration can develop these new players and are ready to face the challenge of teaching the game to young men and women unfamiliar with the sport. Allen, as an adult learner of the game himself (believe it or not, he only started playing footy 6 years ago!), will be looking to use his coaching experience with the West Brunswick 3s to create a welcoming and fun learning environment. Although McConnachy has no previous coaching experience, his many years of high-level football will come in handy, giving him a balanced look at the game. He appreciates the way footy is “pure and beautiful at this level” and hopes to cultivate this love for sport within the club, while also taking a step back from his role bagging goals at full-forward and beginning the transition to an early retirement. Like Allen, Cianfagna was a late-comer to the game, but will be trying to channel his inner Ted Lasso as he brings his many years of coaching experience from the ice to the grass to help out a rejuvenated reserves team, while his Canadian French accent will be a relief to the ears of local Swiss players who had a hard time understanding the Aussie French of Ross and Vittori.
This season promises to be refreshing with a return to six rounds and the first full season with four clubs in the Seniors competition. The Jets are ready to make a splash with some new faces in the leadership of the club. As last year’s seniors captain Seb Permian puts it, “growth comes from change” and with huge numbers at early trainings this year, the Jets are growing by the week and are hoping to pull the rest of the league up with them.
The Jets celebrate having their first international coach in Cianfagna, a yearly contender for clubman of the year in Allen, and powerhouse footy star McConnachy as the new staff and have their sights set on a four-peat, while integrating more non-Australians into the seniors roster and harbouring an environment of good footy energy on and off the field.
Are we going to see a highly motivated Jets team under the new coaching staff, or one that has become complacent after three years of nothing but 100-point Grand Final wins?
We’ll see what the change will bring come Round 1 in Bern.
