ORANGE Hawks’ 2015 Group 10 campaign may still be six weeks away from kicking off, but the club will this week ramp up preparations for a return to the top of the competition ladder.
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The club has been training since the beginning of January, and on Saturday the two blues will launch their season at the Wentworth Golf Club with current and former players, supporters and officials on hand to meet the club’s 2015 coaching team, which is headed by premier league duo Jared Brodrick and Brock McGarity.
Brad Cleal (first division), Matt Boss (under 18s) and Nathan Howarth (league tag) will also step up to the coaching plate this winter, and Brodrick was tipping big things across all grades.
“I think we’ll be fairly strong,” he said, with a particular focus on returning his premier league team to the heights in achieved in reaching the grand final in 2013.
“We chased the players in the positions we needed to fill and then there’s a heap of new guys who’ve started coming over the last couple of weeks.
“It’s going to make it tough (to pick a side), but it’s good because we’ve got plenty of depth now.
“I think we’ll be strong in all four grades.”
Returning home following two seasons with the Penrith Panthers’ junior system, Boss says tackling the under 18s coaching role was something he’s always had in the back of his mind.
“I thought it’d be good to help out the club as well,” the 19-year-old said.
“They’re a talented young bunch of blokes and having had the experience down in Sydney I thought I would be able to help them with their development a bit.”
The second grade captain-coach at Orange City for the past three seasons, the trials and tribulations of mentoring a lower grade outfit aren’t foreign to Brad Cleal.
Yet, he says there will be plenty of challenges looking after Hawks’ first division outfit in his return to league in 2015.
“It’s a heaps different game ... let’s hope we get better earlier rather than later,” he smiled.
“I always wanted to come back to play league. I played all my juniors in league and I’m not getting any younger, so I thought why not.”
Across the board the club has enjoyed strong numbers at training throughout the pre-season, but league tag mentor Nathan Howarth says there’s different challenges associated with getting all of his team in the one place at the one time.
“Being a female sport, a lot of the girls have got netball or hockey too, so getting them all to training at the same time is tough,” he said, hoping to return the two blues girls to the finals.
“A couple of years ago we had a pretty successful season, it’d be nice to get up there again.”
Hawks’ season launch is at Wentworth on Saturday starting at 3pm.
