{"id":337468,"date":"2025-12-09T16:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T16:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/337468\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T16:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T16:11:10","slug":"retired-bombers-great-and-200-game-tiger-join-arch-rival-in-off-field-role-afl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/337468\/","title":{"rendered":"Retired Bombers great and 200-game Tiger join arch-rival in off-field role &#8211; AFL News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/games-centre\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ZeroHanger_GamesCentre.png.webp.webp\" height=\"40\" style=\"float:right;\" class=\"play-games-banner\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Retired 253-game Essendon star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/afl\/players\/dyson-heppell\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dyson Heppell<\/a> is joining the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/afl\/teams\/collingwood-magpies\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Collingwood Magpies<\/a> as a development coach for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n<p>Heppell will officially begin his role in the new year as the pre-Christmas training block winds down.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his commitments to the Victorian powerhouse, Heppell will continue to play for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/vfl\/port-melbourne-borough\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Port Melbourne Borough<\/a> in the VFL next year. He signed a two-year deal with the club following his retirement in 2024 and had a stellar debut campaign, averaging over 25 disposals per game.<\/p>\n<p>The Magpies are also adding former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AFL<\/a> player Greg Stafford as a ruck coach.<\/p>\n<p>Stafford&#8217;s career spanned 14 seasons, with his first nine at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/afl\/teams\/sydney-swans\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sydney Swans<\/a> and final five in the yellow and black at Punt Road, with the versatile 204cm tall tallying 204 career games at senior level.<\/p>\n<p>Stafford worked at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/afl\/teams\/melbourne-demons\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Melbourne Demons<\/a> for 11 seasons, including in the 2021 drought-breaking premiership, overseeing the development of up-and-coming rucks.<\/p>\n<p>Executive General Manager of Football, Charlie Gardiner highlighted the quality leadership tendencies that the pair will bring to support senior coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/afl\/coaches\/craig-mcrae\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Craig McRae<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDyson is a fantastic addition to our coaching team and football department. His experiences as a player, including his knowledge around leadership, will be a valuable asset to our playing group,\u201d Gardiner said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWorking predominantly with our upcoming talent, Dyson&#8217;s ability to form strong relationships and understand the needs of players will allow him to be influential and mentor our emerging talent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGreg has over 20 years of football experience and has a track record of developing talented players. He will play a pivotal role in developing our current and future rucks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are excited to welcome such a high-calibre people to Collingwood and we look forward to seeing the impact Dyson and Greg can have throughout our club.<\/p>\n<p>These two are the latest coaching personnel changes to sweep through the KGM Centre following the club&#8217;s preliminary final exit, with assistants <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/afl\/players\/scott-selwood\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Scott Selwood<\/a> and Josh Fraser departing the club.<\/p>\n<p>2010 premiership player <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/afl\/players\/tyson-goldsack\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tyson Goldsack<\/a> has also since joined the Magpies as an assistant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retired 253-game Essendon star Dyson Heppell is joining the Collingwood Magpies as a development coach for the 2026&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-337468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337468","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=337468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}