Joondalup coach Ben Ettridge.
Camera IconJoondalup coach Ben Ettridge. Credit: Supplied/Andrew Ritchie

Top coach back in den

Staff ReporterWanneroo Times

Ettridge, who coaches Australia’s wheelchair basketball team, left the Wolves in 2012 to centralise the Rollers’ program in the eastern states.

Having returned to WA, he remains coach of the Rollers but will pick up on his able-bodied coaching career with the side he took to a State Basketball League flag in 2011.

Upon leaving Perth to focus on wheelchair basketball two years ago, Ettridge indicated a comeback to the traditional form of the game was always on the cards.

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‘I see myself as a basketball coach, not pigeonholed into wheelchair basketball,’ he said at the time.

Championship assistant coach Ryan Benson also returns along with Ettridge’s Rollers’ assistant Luke Brennan.

Joondalup 2013-14 head coach Craig Friday completes the Wolves’ team of deputies.

Friday, who also assists at the West Coast Waves and the Rollers, said stepping down was an ‘amicable agreement’, which would allow him to spend more time with the Waves and his family.

Ettridge was confident in the Wolves roster for next season.

‘We have an exciting group, and I think we will give it a good crack again in the near future,’ he said. ‘We are now looking for a couple of quality individuals to round out our roster.’

The 30-year-old took Australia to back-to-back World Wheelchair Basketball Championships this year with the Rollers defeating US in the final.

The side is determined to take gold at the Rio de Janeiro Paralympics in 2016 after being disappointed with its silver medal at the London Games in 2012.