Six months after he was removed from the position, Greg Thomas is senior coach of Bendigo City FC again.
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Bendigo City technical director Nathan Claridge said previous coach Sean Boxshall stepped down from the position late last week after a review by the club's football department.
Under Boxshall's guidance, Bendigo City's senior side opened the State League Five season with one win and two draws from its first five games.
Claridge said City's football department was concerned by the results and some aspects of its review of the program.
"Things that came to light were a little bit concerning culturally and from a training perspective there were parts of the training process and overall football program lacking,'' Claridge said.
"Given the results were lacking, and senior football is all about results and we weren't getting them, there seemed to be some things underlying that were contributing to that that we needed to address.
"We had a conversation with Sean that we thought we needed to make some changes, including bringing in some coaching support for him and the team. We wanted to bring in Greg (Thomas) and Ryan (Pollard).
"That conversation with Sean led to him deciding that he didn't want to continue with that set-up and that he'd move on."
As a result, Thomas was appointed as interim coach for the remainder of 2024, with Pollard his assistant.
Claridge said the club's football department wanted to utilise the skills of all three coaches.
"The skillset Ryan brings is an organised framework to approach training and Greg is the master of gameday coaching and tactically understanding the game,'' Claridge said.
"We did feel as though that Sean has the connection to the players and the man management skills, so our intent was to use all three skill sets in a coaching structure that would be water tight, but the three would need to be able to work together and Sean felt he couldn't do that."
Sean Boxshall was asked for comment on his departure from Bendigo City, but he respectfully declined to comment at this stage.
Thomas coached Bendigo City seniors to fourth place in 2022 and fourth place in 2023 - just short of its goal to earn promotion to State League Four.
Claridge confirmed "a few players" withdrew from the weekend's game with Ocean Grove as a result of the coaching change and that those players were weighing up their future with the club.
One player who won't return is centre-back Connor Boxshall - the son of Sean Boxshall.
Bendigo City scored its second win of the season at the weekend when it defeated Ocean Grove 5-2.
"The group that we took away got the job done against an improved Ocean Grove team,'' Claridge said.
"The result was good, the energy was up and I think it's an indicator that we're on the right track."
Chidinma Esomeju scored twice for Bendigo City, while Sam Farr, Lachlan Kelly and Greg Thomas, who pulled on the boots again because the club was battling for numbers, also found the back of the net.
Claridge said he understood the public perception of Bendigo City could take a hit by the club's decision to change coaches again.
"We discussed the visuals of this at committee level,'' Claridge said.
"Since Greg left as senior coach he remained at the club coaching our juniors and we felt like there was demonstrated change in some of the areas we wanted to see changing.
"It's hard because most people looking from the outside in don't see the benefit of that.
"Through all the ups and downs, Greg has demonstrated a commitment to the vision of the club in what we're trying to build.
"One thing we could see that Greg could re-establish straight away was the link between the junior club and the senior club. We felt there was a growing disconnect between the seniors and the juniors."
Bendigo City seniors are back on home soil next Sunday against country rival Ballarat.
