Under new captain-coach Will Ingram, Blayney president Adam Hornby is certain the Bears will grizzle their way into the 2017 Group 10 premier league finals and, potentially, all the way to the title.
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The Bears hit the lush, green turf of King George Oval this week in preparation, and will kick-start their year on Sunday with the club’s season launch at Heritage Park.
Hornby said the launch will be community minded and invited the entire town to come down and show their support for the Bears, there’ll be a jumping castle, barbecue lunch and ice creams available for the kids too.
“We want to be more of a community club and not just a rugby league club,” Hornby said of the Bears’ focus for 2017.
With Ingram at the helm, Hornby believes the Bears can go deep into the competition this year, highlighting reigning champions Mudgee and last year’s runners-up Orange CYMS, along with Bathurst Panthers and Oberon as the side’s main rivals.
“There are probably [four] stand out sides,” Honrby said.
“It’s really up to us to lift our game on the field because financially the little clubs like us, Cowra and Lithgow, we can’t compete with sides like Bathurst Panthers, but the community spirit gets us further
“[Panthers] make tens of thousands from the NRL games and knockout carnivals. We’d love to have that kind of money, but they just don’t have the same community support that the small clubs have.”
The shining light of the 2016 competition was Blayney’s league tag team, which claimed the premiership title on the back of a Liv Bird field goal.
“The girls are going to be back and will be super competitive again,’ he said.
Hornby says that there is a lot of talent in the under 18s too.
“We’ve lost a few of the younger players to university but we have a load of talent coming up through the juniors,” he said.
With the competition-proper beginning on April 1, the club is still looking around for a few players for the first grade side, and with the Bathurst knockout on in just over a week the team may well be under full strength.
“We have a few guys out there that are still playing cricket so they won’t be able to play in the knock out on the 11th, and that’s fine,” Hornby said.
This Sunday the junior league is kicking off with its carnival at King George Oval at 10am.
Matt Findlay
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
Mark Logan
Started working in newspapers in the 1990's in the darkroom of the Pastoral Times in Deniliquin before moving to Millthorpe in 2003. Soon after arriving I started as a photographer at the CWD. Now a journalist at the Blayney Chronicle.
Started working in newspapers in the 1990's in the darkroom of the Pastoral Times in Deniliquin before moving to Millthorpe in 2003. Soon after arriving I started as a photographer at the CWD. Now a journalist at the Blayney Chronicle.
