Steel chief executive Julie Paterson hopes the decision to appoint both Dunedin's Janine Southby and Invercargill's Natalie Avellino will prove to be a masterstroke.
"Both were standout candidates during the appointment process and the panel soon recognised how their skills complemented each other," Paterson said.
"We are confident this will be a very strong combination to lead the Steel next year."
Some of the finer operational details still have to be worked out, but the team will "definitely" be based in Invercargill.
"But, clearly, what we intend is to have a greater presence in Dunedin so we would see there would be more trainings in Dunedin. We have not had time, to be frank, to work out the nuts and bolts of it yet," Paterson said.
"We are basically working our way through the different options at the moment."
Two heads are supposedly better than one but in the event the co-coaches cannot reach an agreement, Paterson said the franchise had a process in place to help resolve the debate.
"It is something we've had a lot of robust discussion around," she said.
"Initially, we want to have the co-coaching in place and for it to be seen as a real team approach.
But we have a resolution process in place which we will be able to implement to get around things.
"But I'm really excited that we have secured two of New Zealand's up-and-coming coaches. I think that is a really outstanding result for us."
Both coaches have experience working within the national framework. Southby is the New Zealand under-21 coach and Avellino is the assistant coach of the New Zealand secondary schools team.
