Western Victoria’s Red Devils seeking a winning culture

Ballarat Red Devils have been a part of the Victorian National Premier League since the commencement of the competition in 2014, and in those three years they have enjoyed reasonable stability under the tenure of its coach, James Robinson.

The former Melbourne Victory striker was born and raised in Liverpool, and although Ballarat was Robinson’s first senior coaching job at this level of football, the Englishman revealed that he has been coaching for 16 years prior.

“It wasn’t really a big step for me, I have been coaching since I was 17,” he said.

“It [coaching] has always been an interest of mine and I knew [Ballarat] would be a different environment.”

Robinson came to the Red Devils when they were relatively starting from nothing. The side had just came out of the state leagues and were hurled straight into the top tier of the National Premier League. Robinson said that he knew exactly what he was coming into.

“We had a blueprint but we were starting from relatively nothing,” he said.

“I knew we would have to use a majority of local players and we did.”

The Red Devils have been bringing up a large amount of youth talent through their system and with the allocation of only two foreign players, the side has players hailing from Ballarat.

“If you are good enough, you are old enough,” Robinson said.

“We have a large region we can look from in most of Western Victoria and we try attract elite kids and elite players.

“If you look at the realities of it it works well, it isn’t full time work for us so it is important to get players locally.”

The Ballarat Red Devils are currently sitting sixth in the NPL2 West conference in 2016 and its coach believes his side are in with a chance to finish the league in the top four.

“We have a few games to go,” he said.

“The thing we control most is ourselves, we are still in the league and want to get ourselves the most points possible.”

“Each week brings a new challenge for us, we assess how we played the week before then highlight the things we need to work on.

“We don’t want to go into a game blind so of course we have an awareness but the main idea is to have consistency in this level of football.”

In the 2016 campaign, the Ballarat based side was looking for sustainability.

Robinson concluded by talking about where he is seeing the club go in the coming years and added that he sees it as his mission to try and get the best possible impossible out of every coach and player at the club.

“We have a rich history and it is good to have a goal to add onto that history,” he said.

“We want to continually challenge the club and develop a winning culture.

“It is our duty of care to look after our players and coaches and I would like to think that we are becoming a family club.

“It will take time to get there but everything takes time.

“Our coaches are everything to us – if we have good coaches and look after them the players will come.”

Ballarat Red Devils coach James Robinson said that he wants the club to be the complete package and that this frame of mind will drive the club to where it needs to be.

The Red Devils have surprised in some games this year defeating some of the best in the competition.

Do the Ballarat based side have what it takes to compete with the National Premier Leagues best?

Time will only tell.