The Southern Saints have promoted 2016 Assistant Coach Warwick Kain as their head coach for the 2017 AFLNZ Premiership season.
Warwick Kain is a mainstay of the AFLNZ Academy and High Performance Programmes and with over 4 years’ experience with Under 16, Under 18 New Zealand and most recently the Academy Level 1 NZ Hawks representative teams, he will have background knowledge on a majority of players within the Premiership.
The Otago Boys High School teacher played a pivotal part as assistant coach for the Southern Saints in last year’s competition as they finished runners up behind Premiers the Western Crows and will be a perfect fit in absence of Andrew Congalton.
His passion and drive for developing AFL in NZ shines through and being a high school teacher, Kain will provide the perfect platform and structure to get the most out of his players.
Warwick was first involved in the development of AFL in NZ down in Otago, where he, along with other members of the Dunedin community started a small league and have watched it grow over the past five years. He has unearthed talent such as former Hawthorn International Scholarship holder Ben Miller along with a number of youngsters who were involved with the 2016 AFLNZ Premiership.
“I am incredibly excited to once again be working with the players and coaches the Saints retain in our base player group. At the AFLNZ national draft, we will look to incorporate a mixture of experienced players combined with the raw talent and athleticism the AFL New Zealand Youth competitions discover. In 2017, I will continue to develop and instill the Saints culture that we created in the inaugural 2016 season.”
Having a good handle of talent coming through the AFL New Zealand system, Warwick will be excited when the AFL New Zealand National Draft takes place and will be ready to select a number of unknown players who have the potential to be superstars.
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