Collenette excited to take over the reins at Sylvans
Jon Collenette has stepped up to become the new Sylvans Priaulx head coach, with Mike Garnett set to leave the island in December.
Collenette, who has been coaching at the club for the last 20 years, has been assistant to both Martyn De Garis and Garnett, and says it is a ‘privilege’ to take over the top role from the latter.
He will manage his first game tomorrow afternoon when they travel to the Track to play Bels.
‘I’ve known since the summer that Mike was going to be moving on and taking up a new role in London at the end of the year, so this has been the plan for a few months,’ said the new boss.
‘I’ve already taken on a bigger role this season ahead of the change so the players should not see too much of a change, which is nice.
‘We’re really going to miss having Mike at the club when he goes, and luckily he will be around until the end of the year to help me out.
‘It’s been great to have been able to learn from Mike and from Martyn before that, too – I have picked up an awful lot.’
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Collenette has been involved with the senior teams at the club for around six years and believes there is an exciting future ahead for the Westerners.
‘We have a lot of young players coming through who are doing very well, a lot of our squad is under-18, and because I have been at the club for so long I have known many of them since they were five or six,’ he said.
‘The likes of Oscar Leadbeater, Simon Arnold and Tiago Rodrigues are also still young but have that experience at Priaulx level already.
‘There’s some more senior players in the squad, too, which means that we have a nice blend.
‘I hope that this will be a long-term thing, and we hope to be challenging in the next few years.
‘There’s a real buzz at the club at the minute, the committee is great, we’re seeing great numbers at training and everybody is optimistic that we’re moving in the right direction.
‘The junior sides have also done very well for years, and I think we’ll see the fruits of that in the next few seasons.’
Sylvans president Adrian Brown paid tribute to the contribution Garnett has made at St Peter’s.
‘We are very sorry to be losing Mike in December, but we’re extremely grateful to have had his services over the last few years,’ he said.
