AUSTRALIAN RULES
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There will be no bigger year of change for the Bathurst Bushrangers than what’s to come in 2016, and following Sunday’s annual general meeting, the club is looking forward more than ever to the challenge.
The talking point is the Central West AFL seniors moving to a one-tier competition, meaning the Bushrangers will now field two teams, and the Bathurst club is relishing the change.
Returning president Graeme Grundy said his players have responded positively to the two-team system and believe both teams will be capable of going the distance.
“First grade has only had three other teams to play but now they have the chance to play the likes of Parkes and Young. It’s going to be a bigger competition with more variety and that’s what we’re really looking forward to,” he said.
“The players had their own meeting to decide how next year is going to work. They’re pretty keen to set the teams up as evenly as possible and not leave one stronger and one weaker.
“We want to have two equally competitive teams going for the flag.”
Currently the two teams are set to be labelled Bushrangers Black and Bushrangers Teal.
Grundy said the club will look to get creative in its attempt to deliver two balanced teams.
“We will look towards doing something like a player draft. We haven’t finalised anything regarding that yet and we’ll look into that more in our next meeting which is on December 10,” he said.
“I see this as a great opportunity, especially for those fringe players this year who were always moving up and down between grades. They’ll always now be playing in the same team.
“Handling the internal rivalry will be a challenge. We know that the match against each other will be one of the hardest games they’ll play. There will be no holds barred there.
“We thought that a lot of particular players might want to be in the same team as each other but they’ve all said they’re happy to be split up if it makes for even teams.”
Looking back on the season gone it wasn’t only the seniors that gave Grundy and the club plenty to smile about.
“Our junior numbers grew substantially this year. We’ve got the most junior numbers of any Central West club and we only expect that to grow more this year. We’re looking to revamp the Auskick format and hopefully that will help attract more numbers,” he said.
“Our first grade team performed brilliantly in the grand final ... and it was probably one of the best that the competition has seen in a long time. The under 18s getting three in a row was very special as well.”
Bushrangers are firing up early for the big year of change, having hooked into their pre-season training on Tuesday night.