Sedgwick and Mayfield take reins at Sharks

With the new Great Southern Football League season fast approaching, Albany Football Club moved swiftly to replace league coach Mick Mustey, appointing premiership duo Scott Sedgwick and Kim Mayfield as his replacement for 2017.

The Sharks and Mustey parted ways on Monday due to “personal issues” just three months after his much-hyped announcement of a two-year tenure at the club.

In a statement provided to the Albany Advertiser by Sharks president Geoff Oldfield, the club confirmed Mustey would not coach the league side this year.

“Unfortunately Mick has some personal issues he needs to address and will be standing down as head coach of the Albany Football Club,” Oldfield said.

“We wish Mick all the best and we will support him as he hopefully moves forward from here.”

With the season starting on April 22, the Sharks wasted no time in finding their new league coach by snaring Railways premiership coaches Sedgwick and Mayfield.

Sedgwick will become a senior coach for the first time after being an assistant to Mayfield when the Tigers broke a 26-year drought back in 2012.

In a further boost, Mayfield will be an assistant under his close friend, mainly consisting of a match-day role. After two years as an assistant coach at league level, Sedgwick was excited by the opportunity to take the reins.

“I’ve done an apprenticeship under Chub (Mayfield) and this was always the natural progression,” Sedgwick said.

“It will be challenging but it’s a real exciting time at the club, especially going to the new home ground. It helped me to pursue the initial phone call really, having Chub there, and we know each other really well.”

Sedgwick took his first training session with the group on Tuesday night and is confident of securing some new recruits by round 1 who could include young ruckman Stewart Davies.

Davies appears on the move from premiers North Albany, initially signalling intentions to play with Newdegate before a clearance was lodged by Denmark-Walpole for his services.

Last week another clearance was lodged, this time from the Magpies to the Sharks, and is still pending.