AFTER a trying 2019 Barossa, Light & Gawler football campaign, Kapunda will enter next season full of renewed optimism after signing former Sturt star Fraser Evans as its new A-grade playing- coach.

The 191cm defender made 165 appearances for the Double Blues before retiring last month after a decorated league career that boasted dual premierships, in 2016 and ’17 – the latter in which he won the Jack Oatey Medal for best on ground in the decider – two state representations, and two SANFL Team of the Year selections.

The 28-year-old will replace outgoing coach David Leslie, who stepped down from the role to be part of the recruiting panel that helped attract Evans to the club.

It will be Evans’ first crack at coaching, and he’s looking forward to the challenge.

“I wasn’t sure if coaching was definitely something I wanted to do, and that’s probably what took me the longest to come to grips with, whether I actually wanted to coach or not,” he said.

“I spoke to a lot of my close friends and mentors about whether it’s something I should be doing now, or whether I should wait a few years, and the feedback and the encouragement I got made me feel really comfortable in doing it.

“It was also a little bit of now or never; if I don’t coach this year, then I might never do it.”

The Bombers have struggled since losing the 2017 grand final to Barossa District, finishing seventh and ninth in subsequent seasons.

Evans said the prospect of building success from the ground up was also what appealed to him about Kapunda.

“That was certainly part of the reason (for choosing Kapunda), I really wanted to be part of building something, rather than going to a club that’s had a lot of recent success,” he said.

“Coming from Sturt and being a club that had struggled, eventually being able to provide some success made it all the sweeter; hopefully there will be a little bit of that at Kapunda.

“But it doesn’t all just happen easily, it’s a lot of bloody hard work.”

Kapunda president Matt Ryan said Evans’ involvement in creating a winning culture at the Double Blues was something that really stood out.

“They won four wooden spoons, I reckon, in his first four years there, and (in his interviews with us) he just talked about the building of the culture they had as a group,” he said.

“They all went there young – there was about 10 of them there together just building up a culture that turned Sturt around, and he obviously went on to win a couple of premierships.

“We were really impressed by what he said.”

Evans added the club is currently in talks with a number of potential recruits who may make their way to Kapunda for 2020.