SOUTH Cairns has promoted in-house to fill one of the most sought-after positions in Queensland country football, awarding 2009 assistant coach Robbie Douglas the senior job for the 2010 AFL Cairns season.
Douglas takes over from Steve Daniel, who accepted a coaching role with Murray Football League side Congupna after three seasons in charge of the Cutters.
The appointment is a huge vote of confidence in Douglas, considering the Cutters job attracted a lot of out-of-town interest.
Douglas, who played senior football for the Cutters after arriving from Melbourne in 1992, feels he is ready for the step-up in responsibility.
"I’m very happy I’ve got the job. I’ve been at the club for a while and started coaching the juniors and have sort of moved through the ranks," he said.
"I’ve spent that past few years under SJ (Daniel). He brought a new era to the club and definitely helped me strengthen a few weaknesses I needed to work on.
"Now it’s a matter of sitting down with the assistants and finding out who is staying, who is leaving and build a side from there."
The Cutters have already lost six players from the team that went down to Cairns Saints in last month’s decider, including 2009 Crathern Medallist Andrew Browning and centre-half forward Marcus McMillan.
Douglas is confident the Cutters will learn from the grand final loss, their second in two seasons to the Saints, and remain a competition force.
"We’ll have a look at the grand final and see where we went wrong and try to fix any problems," he said.
"Like I said, we’re still finding out which are going to stay around."
Douglas said the Cutters would start their official pre-season in January.
