Disappointed Young blasts Waterhouse

After just one win in nine matches, Waterhouse and former national striker-turned coach, Paul Young, parted ways by mutual consent on Wednesday.

The former Waterhouse coach, however, defended his time in charge at the Drewsland club and shared that he walked away following a proposal from the club's president Fitzroy Vidal to take on Donovan Duckie as an assistant for the rest of the season.

Young also accused players of not being professional enough and club administrators of trying to influence team selection. He was very disappointed at leaving the club as he believed they were on the right path..

"At the first staff meeting, I told them we needed to be united on and off the field and that was the only way. But we have members trying to influence who play, when they play and why they play. But the only person I listen to when it comes to team selection is my assistant Shavar (Thomas), and they didn't take lightly to that," he explained.

FIXING PROBLEMS

"You have some people in their office pushing to start a (certain) team and asking why is a player playing or not playing. They don't know if the player attended training or if he was late. I came in a situation where players are not coming to training, players coming to training late, coming to training drunk, players having injuries and not going to the physio, all these things I try to fix.

"I tried to teach them how to be a professional as this is the closest some will come to professionalism, and that is what I was trying to bring to Waterhouse. For them to respect the game and treat it as if their lives depends on it," Young added.

He revealed that following the defeat to Tivoli on Sunday, a meeting was arranged between himself and Vidal, who wanted Donovan Duckie to assist him for the remainder of the season. However, he flatly refused the proposal, and following another meeting with other stakeholders, he decided that they should part ways.

"Sunday, after the (Tivoli) game, the president called and said he had a proposal for me. So we met at Jojo's and he told me he had no problem with my coaching and that I knew what I am doing, but noted that we are not getting the results and asked if I could bring in (Donovan) Duckie to be my assistant.

"On Monday, I got an email from the treasurer, (Ainsley) Smeikle, saying the warm-up was poor and that too many old players were in the team. That email was accompanied by another from the manager, Conrad Byfield, agreeing with the treasurer and bashing the players, which I resented.

TUESDAY'S MEETING

"Tuesday after training, I saw the president, vice-president, treasurer, manager, gen-sec, and me and my assistant went in a the meeting, which was chaired by the president. He came with the same (Duckie) story and my response was the same. I told him that the reason why we were here is because some people wanted to influence who play, and I don't go for that," he revealed.

"They knew that I wouldn't go for it though, so maybe they wanted to fire me, but never knew how," he added.

Although disappointed, Young said he always knew it was going to be a tough job and wished the Drewsland team the best in their fight to avoid the drop.