THE Launceston Tornadoes will be looking for a new coach for the 2015 SEABL season after Peta Sinclair officially announced yesterday that she had decided to leave the club to return to Brisbane.
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Sinclair played with the Tornadoes in 2008 and joined the Tornadoes as coach in 2013, after being an assistant coach with WNBL club Townsville Fire.
She said yesterday that the decision to leave had been a difficult one and had been made for personal reasons.
‘‘It was a tough decision to make to leave the program because I have really enjoyed my time so far and I don’t have any other job lined up as yet but eventually I hoped to stay involved in basketball,’’ Sinclair said.
‘‘I was hoping to stay with the Tornadoes for at least three seasons and put in place some structure and ideas I had still to move the club forward.
‘‘But it has been so positive so far – the community support has been unbelievable and the new faces we have on the board have been great.
‘‘We have some great up and coming talent coming through, and ultimately we are hoping to get to a stage where we don’t have to bring in any players from the mainland and we can work toward having a full-on Tasmanian team.’’
Sinclair said the Tornadoes were already searching for a replacement head coach and an announcement could come within the next couple of weeks.
‘‘I think it would be healthy to have someone who is local here, and financially, that is going to be a better position for the club.
‘‘Ultimately, the vision of the club is to develop local talent so I think not we don’t have only the players to develop – we must continue to bring coaches in from the local talent pool we have here as well.’’
She said the last two seasons had been challenging, with the Torns suffering from injuries to key players such as Liv Howard and Nadeen Payne but the club had benefited by being able to attract players of the calibre of Heather Phillips and Olympian and WNBA champion Abby Bishop.
‘‘It’s been a great season in a lot of respects and obviously we wanted to make finals this year but to finish in fifth place is another good achievement for the club,’’ Sinclair said.