North Wagga seniors and juniors flying high

By James Matthey

The North Wagga Junior and Senior clubs haven’t always been on the best of terms, but that is starting to change as both clubs look to work together for the betterment of the whole football and netball community.

With many senior and junior clubs in the Riverina operating as separate entities, North Wagga has broken the mould and is setting an example for other clubs to follow about the benefits of joining forces.

North Wagga Juniors President, Garry Crouch, said it was fantastic to see the work the seniors were doing in helping out the junior players.

“In years gone by, North Wagga juniors and seniors were at loggerheads with each other, but now we’ve got good communication with Foxy (President Greg Fox) and Rod Sheedy (secretary) so it’s really good,” said Crouch.

“We’ve had the senior group come down and train with our juniors all the time, which is great, the kids love it, seeing the senior boys running around out there so it’s been fantastic.

“A lot of clubs don’t have that and I think young Nathan Dowdle (captain-coach of the senior side) is doing a great job with the kids even though he’s only young.”

Senior Club President, Greg Fox, said this closer relationship was instrumental in ensuring that local juniors continued to rise through the ranks into senior footy, which is a signature of this year’s senior squads.

“Positives for the club are the amount of kids and the amount of juniors that have come through the club and are playing senior footy,” said Fox.

“That’s the pull through of the juniors, trying to get a pull through of our junior club into our senior club, so the majority of our guys playing reserve grade and first grade at the moment have an average age of about 20.

“It’s been pretty positive, I’d say three or four years ago it wasn’t overly positive, it was probably like most other clubs where we were a bit separated, but we’ve worked pretty hard to try and bring the two clubs together and try and talk about pull-through from our junior sides and to work together.”

After floods ravaged any hopes of a successful 2012 season, just being on the field is a positive for members of the North Wagga Junior Football Club, whose Under-12 and Under-13 sides have been two of the stand-outs for the club this season.

“In the juniors we’ve got two teams (Under-12s and Under-13s) that have made finals this year, which is not common, we don’t make finals very often,” said Crouch.

“We’ve got some good young kids coming through, there’s lots of talent there so we’re looking really good.”

The boom in netball popularity has also been a highlight for the club in 2013, with Under-13 and Under-15 teams being added to last year’s existing Under-9 and Under-11 sides.

“We only started our netball last year, we’ve never had netball before and we started from the ground up so we can improve on the netball still,” said Crouch.

“Last year we started with 9s and 11s…now we’ve got 13s and 15s as well which is good.

“You’ve got mothers involved doing coaching now whereas before they just sat in the crowd and did nothing, so it’s got them more involved in the club so in that way it’s good.

“We’ve also put in for a grant for another netball court, because now with four teams of netballers it’s a bit hard to squeeze them all in so we’re hoping to get another court so all the North Wagga community can use it.

The Senior Club has also been focusing on the netball aspect of the club, which Fox says is vital to making the club stronger both on and off the field.

“We’ve focused a little bit more on netball this year, our side’s been pretty poor the last three to four years and this year we’ve improved a hell of a lot, we’ve won a few more games,” said Fox.

“From a club point of view I think it’s really important, particularly on the social side with functions and that, bringing boyfriends and girlfriends to the club and those sorts of things, I think it’s really important.

“This year we’ve had a mock wedding, we’ve had perfect partners and a few of those dos where you try to involve both sides of it, I think it makes the club stronger overall.”

However, both clubs continue to face challenges. The Junior Club faces a constant battle to find enough players to field teams each week, while the seniors have had to recover from a mass exodus of players at the conclusion of the 2012 season.

The juniors often have to rely on 12 and 13-year-olds to fill in for the Under-14 side that competes in a new Friday night competition, and the seniors have had a tough transition after losing an astounding 17 players from last year’s premiership winning Under-17s side.

Hopefully those obstacles are just minor blips along the path to success, and with the seniors now in a stronger financial position than they have ever been, and the juniors awaiting a response to their application to have their lighting facilities upgraded, things are looking bright.

In the not too distant future, it might not seem implausible that the North Wagga juniors and seniors are a thing of the past, with the North Wagga Saints standing tall in the Riverina as one, united club.

“Looking to the future we’ve already talked about it as being one club instead of two, I think that’s something in the future we need to talk about, we’ve talked about it for a couple of years and I think it’s viable, particularly if we put our heads together and work out how it actually works,” said Fox.