Heart won’t hold Keast back

St Mary’s co-coach Glenn Keast addresses his players during 2019. (Sports Media Image/Marcel Berens)

GLENN Keast has confirmed he will coach St Mary’s alongside good mate Travis Robertson in 2021 as he continues his recovery from twice going into cardiac arrest less than seven weeks ago.

The local football great collapsed while taking training at Anthony Costa Oval on the morning of May 30 and spent the best part of a week in Geelong Hospital.

“A few people have asked the question, and (wife) Carolyn asked the doctors the question about stress,” Keast said.

“I’ve got a pretty important job, and a decent job in terms of my job at Cotton On comes with pressure of being involved in an organisation like that.

“The last three or four months have been a lot of pressure, and the areas that I look after. Whether it’s that or footy coaching, there’s pressures that go with that.

“The expert advice is stress is not good for your heart, but it’s hard to correlate one to the other in terms of a specific incident and say, ‘Because you were stressed that’s what happened’.

Keast, who is only one of two men to coach 200 GFL senior games, had a 10-year break between leading North Shore for a final single season in 2007 to taking over with Robertson at St Mary’s in late 2017.

After a grand final appearance in 2018, the Saints came an elimination final to beat Colac to claim its fifth GFL premiership.

“Footy for me is energy giving; I really have enjoyed it,” Keast said.

“I wasn’t desperate to get back into it but certainly having got back into it – and you build those connections with our young group that we’ve got at the moment.

“And there are some fantastic young lads there that have just got the world at their feet in terms of local footy and their capability of hopefully doing again what they did in 2019.

“There are great options there that I think I’d love to be around to help them with that.

“Certainly keen to do it again and I know ‘Robbo’, and I have committed to next year already so certainly would uphold that deal.

“Who knows beyond that but I just feel like for myself, it’s a goal to get back to do doing what I was doing, whether it’s work, footy, family, I want to be back doing all the things I was doing before, just as a sign that I’ve recovered from this episode.”

Tomorrow: Glenn’s Road to Recovery

Twitter: @tom_king79