Eye spy for Stingray snap

By Peter Sweeney
ADAM Dowie saw Shepley Oval for the first time on Monday.
Sure, he wanted to “spy” on the surface however Dowie’s main reason for a Morwell to Dandenong and return trip was “to promote football”.
“Yep, I’ll be in that. Just tell me how to get to Shepley Oval,” Dowie, the off-field leader at the Gippsland Power replied when asked if he would be in a promotional photograph with Dandenong Stingrays coach Graeme Yeats.
“I’ll do anything to promote the clubs, the kids and the game.”
Dowie and Yeats will cross paths again at Shepley Oval this Saturday when their decimated teams lock horns in a TAC Cup match.
Decimated because players in their sides who are members of the Victoria Country squad aren’t permitted to play.
Power – who had 10 less scoring shots – downed the Stingrays by a point in the opening game of the season… the first, and only, time when Dowie and Yeats have met.
“Yep, we were lucky to win… but we led all day and would have been unlucky to lose,” Dowie said.
Dowie, 43, is in his first season as coach of the Gippsland Power. He and his wife Jane are from Warrnambool – moving to Warragul with their six, four and nearly two-year-old sons at the start of the year. The couple are expecting their fourth child in August.
“Our eldest is just in prep. The timing of the pregnancy wasn’t great, but things happen for a reason,” Dowie said.
“We’ve been really busy since coming here and it has been hard without family and friends. But there is a great opportunity here and we’ve settled well.
“We’re really loving it. It’s full-time footy and I’m not only coaching the Power. The job involves Auskick and development.
“I’m learning by my mistakes… as I imagine a lot of people have learnt.”
Unlike Dowie at the Power, Yeats isn’t full time at the Stingrays.
A 12 season player with Melbourne, he is in his eighth year at the helm at Dandenong.
“I’m enjoying it as much today as I was the first day I walked in the place,” Yeats said.
“It’s a great environment. Great people, great kids.
“I get an enormous buzz from seeing the kids develop. We like to win, but the result is not the be all and end all.
“We’re not playing for sheep stations. It’s great watching the kids do well.
“I barrack for our boys whenever they get a kick in the AFL.
“The last two years have been great for us from a draft point of view. Four of our lads have made their (AFL) debuts this season.”