SHERWOOD THANKS FLETCH AS HE STARTS AND FINISHES AS A MAGPIE
Andrew Thomson
Adrian Fletcher has officially stepped down as the QAFL Senior Coach at the Magpies after 2 years in the role hampered heavily by COVID and mother nature. With expanding business interests and commitments and a keen interest to follow the likely upcoming AFL career of son Jaspa, he was simply unable to commit the time required to continue in such a demanding role.
A highly credentialed coach with 231 games playing experience at the elite level across 4 clubs – Adrian then made a seamless transition into coaching, working in successful eras at Collingwood, Geelong and Brisbane. Upon leaving the elite AFL coaching environment, Adrian then moved into a role with AFL Queensland and the AFL as High Performance Coach looking after QLD U16s and u18 Allies as Coach and overseeing the Brisbane Lions and Gold Coast Suns Academy Programs. During this time, 26 players coached and developed in programs designed and run by Adrian were drafted to AFL clubs, with 22 of them now having made a Senior AFL debut.
Fletcher arrived at Sherwood in 2021 with the Magpies fresh from a Preliminary Final berth, but having lost 12 of their finals 22 to either retirement or higher honours pushing their way into the AFL or VFL. As such, it was a young list prime for development, and after a tough opening to 2021, the playing group began to develop rapidly under Fletcher’s tutelage. A team with 75% of the squad aged 17-21 began to really hit their straps, winning consecutive matches against the competition leaders and flying towards finals with a soft draw running home. The Pies in a 3 week stretch defeated the Top 3 sides on the ladder including strong wins over Labrador and eventual Premiers Broadbeach, who notably then went on a 27 game QAFL winning streak leading into the 2022 Grand Final. The young Magpies then dismantled Morningside at Jack Esplen Oval by 13 goals and had stunning momentum winning 7 of their last 9 (including wins over 5 of the Top 6) before the dreaded COVID 19 shutdown finished their season prematurely. Sadly AFLQ refused to entertain a finals system that included all of the top teams over a 4 week finals structure to reboot the QAFL competition post lockdown, leaving the form teams out of the finals, including some that had played less games than others.
On the back of this strong 2021 form, high hopes were held for 2022, however such is the challenge for a club that continually develops and churns out young talent, several more players were lost to the VFL in both Brisbane and Melbourne before Mother Nature replaced COVID as a major challenge for the club when the oval and ancillary facilities were inundated in flood waters resulting in lost weeks of training. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but sadly the eagerness to return to training and stay on schedule with practice matches saw several key players suffer long term soft tissue injuries, with the Magpies taking the field in Round 1 with 8 of their Top 10 place getters in the 2021 Best & Fairest unavailable through injury, and things did not improve from there - losing Captain Luca Winton for 16 weeks and Riley Easton not taking the field at all in 2022. However, the silver lining in season 2022 was that in Fletcher, the Magpies enjoyed one of the best coaches around at identifying and developing youth and the Magpies went about building their list and experience for 2023, with 15 teenagers playing at QAFL Senior level in 2022, and 11 of them getting 10 or more games experience.
Fletcher’s ability to identify, attract and most importantly – develop – young talent was his greatest contribution to the Magpies in 2021 and 2022. He also had a fantastic impact on several of young coaches at the Magpies and acted as a mentor for youth coaches completing Level 2 accreditation. He gave a rousing and uniting speech at the Senior Presentation Night with great humour alongside his remarkable football insight, noting that he started playing for the Magpies as a young boy in Glenorchy (Tasmania) and was proud to finish his time in football in the black & white of the Sherwood Magpies all these years later as the ultimate full stop on 50 years of almost full-time involvement in footy.
While no formal appointment or role has been finalised, we expect to see plenty of ‘Fletch’ down at Powenyenna Oval in the coming seasons as he retains his connection with the Magpies going forward, with a particular focus on youth coaching and development.
A huge thanks to Adrian, wife Narelle and daughter Indi for their support of the Magpies and good luck to Jaspa in the upcoming AFL draft.