IN 2010 when Josh Bowe was announced as the winner of the Michelsen Medal, Troy Coates was sitting next to him and was one of the first to congratulate the star midfielder.
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In two months time, Coates is getting married and Bowe will be front and centre to help his great mate celebrate.
For three hours on Saturday afternoon the friendship will be put on hold as they do battle to become a BFNL premiership coach.
Bowe’s Eaglehawk side goes into the grand final with all the momentum after disposing of the Storm in the second semi-final.
Coates’ Strathfieldsaye was the best team of the home and away season and responded strongly to the second semi-final loss by comfortably defeating Sandhurst in the preliminary final.
“We’re good mates, so I guess it adds another side to the story this week,’’ Coates said.
“I (moved from Kerang) to Bendigo for university to do PE teaching and Bowey was doing the same course.
“I still played footy at Kerang that year, but Bowey and I became good mates and the next year I went to play footy at Eaglehawk mainly because of Bowey.
“I had a couple of years at Eaglehawk and in one of the off-seasons Bowey and I went to Darwin to play footy together.
“I ended up moving back to Kerang and Bowey went across to Perth. We’re still good mates and it’s going to be good to coach against him in a grand final.”
Coates said he and Bowe have picked each other’s brain on coaching matters this year.
“My first year in the Bendigo league so at times I’ve touched base with him to get his thoughts on some things and he’s touched base with me about things,’’ Coates said.
“The last month or so we’ve kept to ourselves a bit.”
Coates still has fond memories of the 2010 Michelsen Medal count.
“We both got invited to the Michelsen that year...Bowey thought he was no chance because Weeksy (Grant Weeks) had a superb year,’’ Coates said.
“It was a nice surprise for your mate to get up and win the medal.”
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