DEAN Oxley has been announced as the head coach for the Blue Bulls’ CRU Country Championship Caldwell Cup campaign next year.
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Oxley was co-coach for the successful Richardson Shield campaign but with coaching partner Col Jeffs now busy with coaching commitments in Canada the Bathurst man is flying solo.
Jeffs will remain a part of the Bulls staff with his new position of coaching co-ordinator.
On Sunday it was announced that Oxley will maintain the top job, with Dick Leach and Graydon Staniforth filling the assistant roles for the Bulls' return to the top division.
Already Oxley has a long-term vision for the Blue Bulls team in trying to develop more consistent results.
He said he’s focused on creating a platform to make coaching the side a more productive process in the years to come.
“I’m trying to create a succession plan for the coaching staff. I’d been coach of the team in 2009 and 2010 but then I focused on school representative teams for some time. I did Country under 20s in that time too,” he said.
“The problem was that we had people coming in and dropping out and that made results very hit and miss. This succession plan will be to help carry the same program over to new coaches.”
Blue Bulls returned to the top tier of the championship thanks to their thumping 68-12 win over New England in the final of this year’s Richardson Shield.
Following the shield triumph Oxley said that the succession plan may be something that “could take three years” to show its effects.
As a former Caldwell Cup winner when wearing the boots himself, in 1996, seeing the Bulls return to the top of the country rugby in the state is something Oxley feels passionate about.
“I will be focused on being unbiased in my coaching. I will be selecting the best players possible,” he said.
“For Central West players not to be contesting the top division isn’t right when we’ve got the players capable of winning the Caldwell Cup.
“I’ve done it before as a player … and now my goal is to achieve that as a coach.”
Oxley believes from what he saw in the Richardson Shield campaign earlier this year that the region is on track to make at statement at next year’s Country Championship.
“The Blue Bulls of 2016 really bought into this program. If we can create a similar atmosphere next year we can do well,” he said.
"In our trial game against Illawarra we were competitive against them for three quarters of the game then they put us to the sword.
“We got some great anonymous feedback from the players after that game to let us know the areas that we had to develop.”
The early appointments of coaches was made to ensure they have an opportunity to watch every Central West Rugby Union club in the Blowes Clothing Cup competition both before and during the upcoming finals series.
Next year’s Country Championship takes place at Port Macquarie on April 29 and 30.
It was also announced that for that first time women’s rugby will be a part of the Country Championship next year, with a format of either rugby 7s or 10s to be decided on between zones in the future.