Cole in as Senior Development Head Coach

The Peel Thunder Football Club are proud to announce that 2019 Colts Assistant Coach Shannon Cole will take over as Head Coach of the Senior Development Program in 2020. 

This will be Cole’s 4^th season at The Thunder after joining from Warnbro Swans as an Assistant Coach during the club’s successful Premiership defence in 2017. After spending his first 2 seasons within the Senior setup, Cole spent 2019 as part of the Talent Pathway, working as the Defensive Line Coach under Colts Coach Michael Glassborrow. 

His experience and extensive knowledge of the talent pathway will be imperative and is something that he hopes will be particularly useful with a number of players expected to make the step up from Colts to Senior Level in 2020.

“I’m really thankful for the opportunity, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my 3 years at the footy club so far and I’m hopeful that I can help the transition and continue the development of all the great young players that we have coming though from the Talent Pathway.” Cole said.

It has been a disappointing couple of seasons for the Senior Development side, only managing 5 wins over the past 2 seasons. The final few rounds of 2019 however showed that there may be light at the end of the tunnel and provides a base level performance of what will be deemed acceptable by the playing group going forward.

“Talking with a number of the players we are looking at becoming a more accountable, professional outfit with higher standards and goals that hopefully will culminate in playing finals football in September.” 

With so many players coming through instrumental in turning around a Colts side that finished 7^th in 2016 into a perennial finals team over the past 3 seasons, the pedigree is there for a similar change in fortunes to happen at Senior Development level.

It only seems appropriate that Shannon, who has been part of their journey so far continues to oversee the next stage of their football development at senior level.

The Senior Development side’s begin their 2020 campaign at Leederville against East Perth on April 4^th. 

Complete fixtures are available here