The Collingwood Football Club has finalised its coaching panel for the 2010 season, with Scott Watters appointed as an assistant coach.

Watters, 40, will be the defensive line coach, and replaces Blake Caracella, who recently resigned to take up an assistant coaching role with Geelong.

Watters’ appointment comes a day after former St Kilda backman Max Hudghton was signed by the club as part-time defensive coach for 2010.

Recruited from South Fremantle at the end of 1988 by West Coast, Watters played 109 games of AFL football from 1989-96, firstly for the Eagles (1989-92; 46 games, including the 1991 grand final team), then Sydney (1993, 94; 37 games) and Fremantle (1995, 96; 26 games). He was vice-captain of Fremantle’s inaugural team in ’95, before retiring at the end of ’96.

In recent years Watters forged a fine coaching career in Western Australia.

He coached WAFL club Subiaco for the past three seasons, including premierships in 2007 and 2008, and for the past two years has coached the WAFL state representative side to wins over Queensland and South Australia.

Prior to leading the Subiaco seniors, Watters coached the club’s under 19 WAFL team in 2006.

Watters is thrilled to have been given an opportunity to work at Collingwood under his former coach at the Eagles, Mick Malthouse.

“It’s an exciting opportunity to work with Mick. Mick’s reputation as a coach doesn’t need a lot of explanation. He’s been an outstanding coach over many, many seasons,” Watters told collingwoodfc.com.au.

“I’m excited by that, but also the opportunity to work with some other quality coaches including Mark Neeld, Nathan Buckley and Paul Hudson. I’m equally as excited about becoming part of that group, so there are plenty of positives to look forward to.”

“I’ve maintained some contact with Mick and Geoff (Walsh) over the last 12-18 months, and they saw me as a good fit at Collingwood, so it’s terrific to be offered the opportunity, and I’m really looking forward to the challenges that are ahead.

“Coaching Subiaco for three seasons and also running the last two state programs has been a fantastic grounding.

“As a senior coach at that level, you oversee all aspects of that program, and it’s a terrific learning environment for a coach coming through.

“We were able to have a good degree of success in recent years at Subiaco and also on a state level.

“The opportunity to steer those ships and learn as you go has been invaluable, so now I’m really looking forward to taking some of that experience, and also learning from some people at Collingwood who have some outstanding records and coaching capacities.”

Mick Malthouse told collingwoodfc.com.au that Watters will bring some outstanding qualities to the Lexus Centre.

“Scott was a successful player for a number of clubs and coached in his own right at Subiaco very successfully,” Malthouse said.

“One of the ingredients you look for as a coach, bringing people into an organisation, is their success rate, and how they’ve handled the success, and Scott’s got a great success rate and handled himself very well.

“We also look at how they’ve handled losing, not necessarily failure, but losing games.

“Scott enjoyed a wonderful period of success at Subiaco, winning two premierships and playing in another grand final, but it was interesting to see how he reacted to losing games this year, and we’re delighted that our expectations of how he would operate were met.

“He’s in full control, and stuck with his team’s game structure that served them so well, and acknowledged the opposition, both very important ingredients coming into his new role at Collingwood.”

Collingwood’s 2010 coaching panel is as follows:
Mick Malthouse (senior coach)
Nathan Buckley (assistant coach – forwards)
Paul Hudson (assistant coach – opposition)
Mark Neeld (assistant coach – midfield)
Scott Watters (assistant coach – defence)
Max Hudghton (defensive coach)
Gavin Brown (VFL coach)
Luke Beveridge (development manager)

Along with Caracella, Brad Scott also resigned from his assistant coaching position in recent months after three years with the Magpies, accepting the senior coaching job with North Melbourne.