\n News\n <\/p>\n
\n Melbourne has appointed a new AFL Head of Development, elevating Taylor Whitford to the role for the 2026 season\n <\/p>\n
MELBOURNE has appointed a new AFL Head of Development, elevating Taylor Whitford to the role for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
Whitford has spent the past three campaigns as the Casey Demons\u2019 VFL Senior Coach, whilst working in the AFL program, with this next step allowing him to work more closely with the Dees\u2019 young players.<\/p>\n
Melbourne GM of AFL Football Performance Alan Richardson said the club was thrilled to give Whitford this opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaylor has been part of both our AFL and VFL program for a number of years now, and has built some incredibly strong relationships throughout this time,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis communicative skills, passion for growth and strong football IQ make him the perfect fit for this role, which will see him work closely with the young players on our list.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis appointment is testament to the work Taylor has put in since arriving at the club, and we look forward to seeing the positive impact he can have on our players\u2019 careers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whitford, a secondary teacher by trade, began his coaching journey in the Tasmanian State League, where he coached North Launceston to consecutive premierships in 2018 and 2019 \u2013 two of five he achieved at the club, also captaining the team to success in 2015 and 2017.<\/p>\n
He added to his resume in 2022, when he played a pivotal role as an assistant coach in Casey\u2019s drought-breaking VFL premiership, before taking the reins ahead of the 2023 season.<\/p>\n
Whitford\u2019s appointment follows the departure of Mark Williams earlier this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News Melbourne has appointed a new AFL Head of Development, elevating Taylor Whitford to the role for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-167509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}