Broadbridge not to continue after three years of Tigers teasing successWednesday, July 27, 2016 - 5:05 PM - by Chris Pike

DEMANDS on his time have meant Michael Broadbridge has decided to not continue on as Claremont coach in 2017 following a three years where the Tigers' best has been impressive, but ultimately they will be left feeling unfulfilled.

Broadbridge took over as Claremont coach following a four-year run under Simon McPhee and then Marc Webb that brought about four consecutive minor premierships, three grand finals, two premierships and a preliminary final.

However, that successful team was on the decline by the end of 2013 emphasised by the finals exit following losses to West Perth and East Perth after finishing on top of the ladder.

With 2013 also turning out to be the final year for Byron Schammer, Andrew Browne, Jesse Laurie, David Crawford, Nick Winmar, James Thomson, Chad Jones and Paul Medhurst, Broadbridge had a big task to keep the Tigers near the top of the ladder.

That was made all the harder at the end of 2014 again with the retirements of Trinity Handley, Andrew Foster, Matt Orzel and Luke Blackwell, but being competitive over Broadbridge's three years in charge hasn’t been a problem.

Consistency from week to week and during games has been though.

Claremont lost two of its first six games of 2014 and while finishing strongly winning its last six, fell just short of a top four finish.

It was another slow start to 2015 for the Tigers losing the opening five games, but again they regrouped down the stretch and the newly introduced top five saw them make the finals and then lose the elimination final to East Perth.

Despite a 76-point win over the Royals to open 2016, it was some last quarter fadeouts and a run of tight losses that saw Claremont slide out of finals contention with just four wins to date. Now Broadbridge has decided that he won't be continuing as coach in 2017.

For Broadbridge, juggling his work at the WA Institute of Sport with coaching a WAFL league side and trying to make time for his family was proving too difficult.

Something had to give and unfortunately after three years it had to be coaching Claremont.

"It's primarily due to work commitments to tell you the truth. I've been under increasing pressure with a full-time job as well as the footy coaching job and some sort of life outside of that," Broadbridge told WAFL World on 91.3 SportFM.

"It's made things reasonably difficult and it came to a head a few weeks ago that I needed to make a decision to unfortunately step away from the part-time role which was the footy coaching.

"Obviously it's been a frustrating season in terms of the win-loss and how we've gone on the premiership ladder and those types of things.

"But at the same time that was only a very small part of the decision. There's a lot of positives around the footy club and a lot to look forward to in the near future as well."

Claremont has been close to having a good season in 2016 losing seven games by less than 10 points and being in winning positions in the majority of them before final quarter fadeouts in particular against Peel Thunder, Perth, South Fremantle, Swan Districts and West Perth.

That has been frustrating for Broadbridge and everyone involved at Claremont because it only highlights they are capable of competing with the top teams, but for the coach there's more to it than that.

Despite having a forward-line featuring the likes of Beau Maister, Darcy Cameron, Ian Richardson, Jack Bradshaw and Jack Richardson, Broadbridge doesn’t believe those further up the field get the ball inside-50 enough to allow the Tigers to take advantage fully of those forward talents.

"I think we've been close as those narrow losses indicate. We've been in situations where it could have gone either way in the last minute or whatever and it hasn’t. We take responsibility for that and clearly it's mine and the players' responsibility to win those close games," he said.

"In my three years we have been very strong defensively and that was something going into this season that we were keen to continue, but at the same time our attack hasn’t been great and been a real weakness.

"We focused a lot in the pre-season in improving our attacking player and trying to get the ball inside-50 more. The stats will show that we have increased our scoring by about 11 or 12 points a game, which is a pretty good result, but the really big thing that we haven’t been consistent enough in is getting enough supply inside our forward 50.

"We convert very well, we're a very accurate side but we just don’t get enough footy in there. In the end, they're the stats that are pretty damning for us as a footy club this year. We haven’t had enough midfield drive or rebound off half-back, or ability to link the ball to get the ball inside-50 to where our dangerous players are."

As for what Claremont needs going forward, Broadbridge feels some more depth in the midfield should be the starting point. Jye Bolton has been an outstanding recruit from Werribee in the VFL but in a lot of ways he has only served to replace Corey Yeo from last year.

However, if Bolton remains in 2017 and Yeo returns from his knee injury that should help Claremont's cause but Broadbridge still thinks a couple of more prolific ball winners could make the world of difference.

"I think we definitely need to look at strengthening our midfield," he said.

"We recruited Jye Bolton specifically for that reason last year and he's been a tremendous pick up for us but we need to develop more types of Jye Bolton's in our team to make it harder for the opposition to restrict so we can keep getting the ball inside-50.

"Perhaps that's one glaringly obviously thing to me that the club needs to look at moving forward."

Given his career as a player, WA State 18s coach, AFL assistant coach, WAFL assistant coach and now senior coach, Broadbridge can't imagine himself being totally lost to football in 2017 but it is far too early yet to know what exactly that involvement will be.

"I've been involved in footy my whole life. I haven’t had one football season off that I can remember in my life." Broadbridge said.

"From playing and retiring when I was 26, then getting involved in coaching the State 18s and going on from there, I haven't had a season off so I can't imagine for one second that I will be doing nothing from a football perspective.

"And to be honest I would rather not be doing totally nothing. I would rather stay involved in some capacity because I just love the involvement and the camaraderie and the feelings you get winning and losing, and what you learn from those.

"In some capacity I would like to be involved but at this stage I certainly haven’t spoken to Claremont or anyone else about doing anything and that will play out in good time.