Tara Murray
New Tullamarine coach Zack Carey jumped at the opportunity to step into a senior coaching role.
Carey has been appointed the Essendon District Football League division 1 club’s coach for the 2025 season.
He takes over from David Connell who decided it was time to leave the club.
Carey said it was an exciting opportunity.
“I’ve been coaching for 10 years in the EDFL,” he said. “Obviously I’ve known a lot about Tullamarine and they’ve always been a proud club.
“For them to give me an opportunity for my first senior role, I owe them. But I’m really excited to take it on and take the challenge head first.”
After a number of different roles in his 10 years of coaching, Carey said he felt the time was right to step into a senior coaching role.
He had been at Strathmore for a number of years and coached the reserves side to a grand final this year.
“I’ve been at Strathmore my whole life and sort of coached right up from some junior stuff to senior thirds, to reserves, to being a senior assistant coach with success in all of them.
“It was my time to be a senior coach and probably not the time to do that at Strathmore so I needed to move on to get that opportunity.
“When the Tullamarine one came along it was a good opportunity, a good fit and something I jumped at straight away.”
Carey said he knows the competition pretty well and spent two years coaching with a mate in division 1 a few years ago.
He said a lot of players pass through the grades so there’s a lot of familiar faces.
“The people already at Tulla, whether the coaches or the players, have been invaluable to get information from,” he said.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun and hopefully we can go pretty well.”
The Demons have missed finals the past two years after being in the mix for a number of years before that.
Carey said the club is a really proud club that has had its challenges in recent years.
“New voice and new time,” he said. “We’re really excited to go together and move forward together.
“We’re really pushing towards playing finals next year and the sky’s the limit really. We want to bring in really good people, not just good footballers.
“We want to build that culture on and off the field, being a winning, professional and enjoyable culture.”
There’s no rest for Carey between season’s with his appointment announced just days after he finished his season with Strathmore.
The new signings have started for the Demons, with Ben Weightman the big one so far.
Weightman kicked 24 goals in four games for Taylors Lakes this year in division 2 before doing his ACL.
“Benny is a great person,” Carey said. “I had a couple of meetings and I dealt with his cousin [Kyle Weightman] at Strathmore.
“When I got to know Ben he really suits what I’m about. He’s going to come on as a forward line coach as well.”
Carey said they would hopefully have a few more signings the next few weeks contacting a number of people in his network.
He said they would also look at development of the younger guys and the current list they have.”
