COFFS City United have appointed Luca Paolacci as the men’s senior coach for the upcoming 2023 season.

Paolacci wasted no time getting the team back into training last week and laid down the gauntlet with the words “we are ready!”.

Paolacci takes over from Glen Williams, who stepped down from the job after winning three consecutive premierships for the Lions.

The charismatic Italian won two premierships as Lions reserve grade coach and paid homage to the man he worked alongside for three seasons.

“This year will be very hard because as you know, Willow (Glen Williams) won everything, I can’t do much better than him.

“I can keep doing what he did, he did a great job, a winning mentality on the team.

“Even this year, we are probably going to lose a few players, players who go to University or new clubs but we will also have new players.

“We will be training hard, I worked with Willow for the past three years, he is a good coach and a good person and I learnt many things from him, I will try to do what he did for the club.

“You know this club has high expectations and I will go into work harder than I usually do.

“We will do everything that we can do to achieve the club’s goals and what Willow did in the last three years.

“So it’s a very hard job, but I feel confident we will be ready, I know the club and I know the boys,” said the Tuscan taskmaster.

Despite the change in personnel, the philosophy remains the same at the Lions den.

“I don’t think we have to change anything at all, just keep doing what we have done,” said Paolacci.

“We don’t want to change it, we are a winning team.

“The base will be there, the mentality will be there.”

Coffs United right-back Scott Cawley was enthused to lace up the boots after the summer break.

“We were keen to kick a ball after two months off, we had a core group getting back into it in the first week of January and we’ll get a few more back in training over the next few weeks,” he said.

“We got the double for the last two years (first and reserve grade), we didn’t have the grand finals the year before due to COVID so it was good to get the double last year and then try and move forward this year.

“We’re pretty chuffed that we’ve got Luca, someone who’s familiar with the club.

“Everyone was quite tight with Willow and he’s had a great run at the club, but we’re excited to kind of move forward and see what Luca can do.

“He’s had great results in the past.”

Coffs United are looking to the youth system to maintain their stronghold on the competition.

“Personally I just want to make sure that we get a younger unit to come through the club, to encourage the younger guys.

“Myself and a few others in the core unit are probably getting up into the early 30s and having family.

“So we want to try and see more youngsters come through.

“We’ve got some exciting new players coming through, they are as keen as you get.

“Players like Hamid, they’re the future of the club, personally I’d like to see those guys get into first grade and develop themselves,” concluded Cawley.

The men’s competition has a change in format from last year’s Coastal Premier League and will comprise of eight teams from across the Coffs Coast and the Clarence.

By David WIGLEY